Best in Hermosillo? The GOAT delivers and 20 is the magic number

The 2023 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final last weekend saw the greatest compound woman of all time, Sara Lopez, win an unprecedented eighth World Cup Champion title beating Denmark’s Tanja Gellenthien in the compound women’s gold medal match.

Because of the extremely hot and humid conditions in the Mexican city of Hermosillo, the matches started later in the day than normal and the archers had to face the added difficulty of shooting under artificial lights.

The compound women’s line-up looked very open with no clear favourite, and it was the two most experienced competitiors, Lopez and Gellenthien, who got through their first two matches to reach the final.

The Dane led all the way until her 14th arrow - her penultimate of the match - when she unleashed a low eight that opened the door to an eighth historic title for her Colombian opponent.

But while the GOAT set the bar even higher on that occasion, several other archers made a strong impression in the season closing event in Mexico. Let’s find out who did.

3. Marcus D’Almeida, Brazil

The Brazilian is undoubtedly one of the archers of the year 2023, having reached the top of the Sanlinda World Ranking at the start of February for the first time in his career at the age of 25, and never relinquishing it for the whole outdoor season.

On the Mexican soil he beat top-seeded Lee Woo Seok in a gold medal rematch of the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing nine years ago, in one of the best recurve men’s match ever. Back then the Korean shot four perfect sets on his way to victory.

D’Almeida was hardly challenged by Mauro Nespoli in the semis, being forced to a shoot-off by the Italian.

The very last encounter of the event went down to a fifth and final set, where the world number one proved the strongest to take revenge over Lee and claim his first Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion title.

Well-deserved.

2. Prathamesh Samadhan Jawkar, India

The Indian has made a big impression in his first season on the Hyundai Archery World Cup circuit, winning gold at the second stage of the season in Shanghai, seeded 33rd.

He, who was still ranked above 300th in the Sanlida World Rankings at the start of 2022, has climbed steadily up the rankings, reaching a career best – seventh – on the Monday before the Hermosillo World Cup Final.

Jawkar’s scores in three successive matches at his very first participation in the major end-of-season event in Mexico were very impressive.

He reached 149 points with 15 arrows against local archer Miguel Becerra in his quarterfinal, before shooting a perfect match of 150 against Mister Perfect himself, world number one Mike Schloesser, in the semis.

With 148 points in the gold medal match, the Indian breakthrough pushed his 20-year-old contemporary Mathias Fullerton to a shoot-off, which he lost despite a (near) perfect shot...

1. Mathias Fullerton, Denmark

...by a whisker.

Tied at 148 points apiece after 15 arrows, the season’s golden achievement had to be decided by a sudden death shoot-off.

Fullerton and Jawkar both hit the X10-ring but it was the former who won the 2023 World Cup title by just millimetres. 

To reach that gold medal match and become the first Danish athlete since Martin Damsbo in 2013 to win the Archery World Cup circuit’s overall title, he had also scored a perfect semifinal against another Indian archer, experienced Abhishek Verma. 

Fullerton certainly deserves that first place on top of our best archer ranking from Hermosillo, but their was very little to decide between the winner and the runner-up.