World Archery Athlete of the Year 2015 Results: Compound Women

Sara Lopez collected the compound women’s World Archery Athlete of the Year 2015 Award at the World Archery Gala in Las Vegas on Friday 29 January 2016. She was voted top of a five-athlete shortlist by the general public and World Archery’s awards panel. The shortlist was proposed by national archery federations and archery experts.

Here are the full results…

1. Sara Lopez  – 35%

The two-time Archery World Cup Final Champion won that second consecutive title on the tour in 2015, becoming the first female athlete to take gold on the season-long circuit in back-to-back years. She also picked up individual bronze at the World Archery Championships in Copenhagen.

Sara held the number one spot in the world rankings entering 2015, and still held it at the end of the year, never once dropping off the top spot.

As if all that wasn’t enough, Lopez also set world-best marks on the 1440 Round (1424 – the highest of any archer, ever) and the compound 50-metre qualification round, twice – up to 713 out of 720.

2. Linda Ochoa-Anderson  – 19%

Linda had arguably her best season, since her 2002 international debut, in 2015. After picking up individual silver and bronze medals at the Archery World Cup stages in Shanghai and Wroclaw, respectively, she qualified for the Archery World Cup Final on home soil in Mexico City.

A home crowd, a good seed and a strong performance in the Final saw Linda win bronze. She also collected silver in the mixed team competition at that event.

3. Crystal Gauvin  – 18%

Three top-10 finishes at Archery World Cup stages in 2015 qualified Crystal Gauvin for her first Archery World Cup Final, where she finished fifth in only her second season as an international archer.

The world number four’s best result of the year came at Copenhagen and the World Archery Championships, where she landed second to the archer she beat by a place in this Athlete of the Year poll!

4. Kim Yun Hee  – 14%

With only two appearances at major international archery events on the year, plus a ninth-place at the Universiade, Kim Yun Hee’s claim to Athlete of the Year came from her incredible performance at the World Archery Championships.

In Copenhagen she beat number five on this list, Vinogradova, and number three, Gauvin, on the way to the compound women’s World Champion crown, becoming the first Korean archer to take gold at the worlds in the division. She picked up a second gold in Copenhagen in the mixed team event, plus bronze in the team.

5. Mariia Vinogradova  – 14%

The 2015 season was an emergence in the senior ranks for Vinogradova, who had previous success as a junior in world team events with Russia. 

She picked up her first senior medal in Antalya, at the second Archery World Cup stage, when she took silver, then collected another second-place finish at the Archery World Cup Final in Mexico City, only losing the gold medal match to the compound women’s Athlete of the Year for 2015, Sara Lopez!