Brady, Casey top USA team trials for 2019 Hyundai World Archery Championships

Three-time Olympic medallist Brady Ellison and impressive newcomer Casey Kaufhold finished top of the USA recurve team trials for the 2019 Hyundai World Archery Championships in ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.

They will be joined by Jack Williams, Tom Stanwood, Erin Mickelberry and five-time Olympian Khatuna Lorig.

“We have an experienced team, we’ve already made plans to start practising together and we’ll do all we can to go get our spots,” said Ellison.

The upcoming world championships are critical as they are the primary qualification route for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The top eight recurve men’s and women’s teams at the event will qualify a full three-athlete quota.

A recurve men’s team representing the USA has finished second at each of the last two Olympics, in Rio in 2016 and London in 2012; Brady Ellison was a member of both of those squads.

In ’s-Hertogenbosch this summer, Ellison will shoot at his sixth outdoor world championships – and it will be Khatuna Lorig’s 10th.

It will be 15-year-old Casey Kaufhold’s first.

“It‘ll be fun to travel with this team. My goal for the whole year is to be happy. I shoot because I want to and because I enjoy it,” she said.

Kaufhold finished fourth in the senior recurve women’s division at the Indoor Archery World Series Finals in Las Vegas in February. She is the only member of the team without a previous international cap for the USA senior squad.

Rio 2016 Olympians Zach Garrett and Mackenzie Brown have been named team reserves.

The USA compound and para teams for ’s-Hertogenbosch will be named following further trials on 8 April.