Paige Pearce wins Indoor World Series Finals on home soil in Las Vegas
Californian 24-year-old Paige Pearce won the first major target title of her senior career as she beat Lisell Jaatma in the compound women’s final at the 2020 Indoor Archery World Series Finals on home soil in Las Vegas, USA.
“It’s been awesome. Better than I ever could have expected. Especially being here in Vegas and I’ve never actually been out here on this finals stage before so that was awesome,” she said.
“The last time I won on home soil was the junior world championships in Ogden back in 2009 so to win a world-level event here in the US really means a lot.”
Pearce opened a lead in the match early and was five points ahead at the start of the fifth end.
She finished with a perfect 30 and 146 points for the 15-arrow match to Jaatma’s 141. The Estonian archer had taken gold at the fifth stage of the circuit in Nimes, France.
Paige, who is the reigning World Archery Field Champion, finished second at the outdoor target worlds in 2019. She competed at all six stages of the Indoor Archery World Series this season, taking three medals – bronze, silver and gold – before winning the final.
Mike Schloesser, Florian Kahllund and Wi Nayeon also took titles in Vegas.
Schloesser was perfect in the compound men’s final against Stephan Hansen. The reigning Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion shot himself to a clean 150 points and, with Hansen dropping three, a commanding victory.
“It’s just the best way to end an indoor season. I was really happy about it, how I shot the whole tournament today and especially how I finished,” he said.
Through his four matches of these Indoor Archery World Series Finals, Mike dropped just one point.
He posted three straight matches of 150 points against Valerio Della Stua, defending circuit champion Kris Schaff and then in the final against Hansen.
Mike, who has not always performed at his best in large finals, looked confident in the South Point arena.
“There’s no way to prepare for a crowd like this, that’s really vocal and really a lot of people,” he said. “If they like scream or yell you can feel it in your body, so there’s really no way to prepare for it. You just need to go for it and make it the best that you can do.”
Florian Kahllund’s win over world number one Brady Ellison in the recurve men’s final was a surprise.
Ellison, who has not dropped a point through two days of the Vegas Shoot, did not look comfortable. His arrows landed uncharacteristically wide of the middle.
Despite falling into an early hole, the US archer pulled the match back to a tie after four sets. But he had his worst set in the fifth, shooting nines with each of his last two arrows. Florian’s 29 points were enough to win, 6-4.
“Very, very nice,” he said. “The crowd was also cheering for me and that was really nice.”
Wi Nayeon beat Olympic Champion Chang Hye Jin to recurve women’s gold in five sets.
The Indoor Archery World Series is a circuit of world-class mass participation archery events. Top finishers collected ranking points at six tournaments in 2020 – with the top 16 in the rankings invited to compete in the Finals in Vegas.
Events were also held in Macau, Luxembourg, Rome, Sydney and Nimes in 2020.
The Indoor Archery World Series Finals were held on Saturday evening at the Vegas Shoot. With more than 3800 archers competing, this year’s competition in Vegas is the biggest in history. There is one more day left to shoot – with winners decided in the evening of Sunday 9 February.
The 2020 Indoor Archery World Series Finals took place on 8 February in Las Vegas, USA.
