Olympic medallist Ellison tops unmarked qualifying at world field

Brady Ellison shot an impressive 399-point unmarked qualifying round on the first day of competition at the 2024 World Archery Field Championships to open up a 15-point gap ahead of second-place Massimiliano Mandia in the recurve men’s leaderboard in Lac la Biche.

The maximum score for 24 targets is 432. (Eighteen per target, six per arrow.)

Cross-discipline specialist Ellison won this event in 2014 and 2016. It’s only a month since the US archer secured his fourth and fifth medals at the Olympics, taking bronze in the mixed team and silver in the individual events.

Elisa Tartler (382), Stas Modic (421), Ella Gibson (422), Giuseppe Seimandi (379) and Fawn Girard (336) head the qualifying lists in the other senior categories after day one.

Compound women’s world number one Gibson praised the target layout.

“It was great to get to shoot off some platforms. I’ve never experienced that before,” she said. The courses, set around the largely-flat (but beautiful) Lakeside Archers, were augmented with artificial structures to increase shot angles and add complexity.

“I did have some trouble with the low sun in my eyes. But I’m happy with the start and hope I can carry it forward.”

Today’s rounds were unmarked, meaning the distances of the targets were unknown.

Tomorrow, qualification continues with the 24 marked targets, after which the fields will be cut to the top 16 archers for match eliminations on Thursday (individual) and Friday (team). Finals take place this weekend and are available to watch live with a subscription to archery+.