Olympic contenders: Casey Kaufhold | Les Huit à Paris 2024

This article series, Les Huit à Paris, spotlights eight of the biggest contenders for the individual titles at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Casey Kaufhold was just 14 years old when Paris was awarded the Olympic Games in 2017.

Her entire career – perhaps her entire life – ever since has been building towards this point.

She’ll be 20 when she enters the arena for her second Games and, unlike that formative experience in Tokyo, you sense a medal is well within reach on the field at the Esplanade des Invalides.

Casey did, after all, win the Olympic test event, held on the very same field, in 2023.

Quick stats

• Name: Casey Kaufhold, USA
• Age: 20
• World ranking: 1
• Olympic caps: 1 (Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games)
• Instagram: @crazy.casey.04

Why it could happen

Kaufhold was born into an archery family – her father Rob Kaufhold owns Lancaster Archery Supply, the largest distributor-slash-retailer in the world – and has shown unwavering commitment to the sport from an early age.

She shot her first bow at the age of three and first competition at the age of eight.

Casey quickly made an impression on her international debut in 2019 and made her first Olympics in 2021 –and that seemed to push her harder and further. At the end of that year, she took silver at the worlds having beaten out the Olympic Champion – and a few months later, she cracked the world top 10.

Last season, Kaufhold made the finals at the world championships again, coming fourth, but then delivered a dramatic victory at the Olympic test event.

Kaufhold beat Lisa Barbelin – on home turf – in that final, delivering under pressure in the fifth set.

“The win in Paris felt very special because I had a great experience on what will be the Olympic stage,” she said recently. “It gives me confidence that if I can do it once, I can do it again.”

Kaufhold performs and sounds like a champion.

Why it might not happen

Casey arrives in Paris as the world number one, as the only previous winner on the Invalides field, and as the reigning Pan American Champion. That’s a whole lot of expectation.

“I don‘t see the win as additional pressure,” she said of the test event victory. “I use it as motivation.”

The last US woman to stand on an individual Olympic podium was Luann Ryon way back in 1976, almost 30 years before Casey was even born. Khatuna Lorig came incredibly close to breaking that run at London 2012, finishing fourth, and then Mackenzie Brown did the same at Tokyo 2020.

It’s a stark reminder of how few archers get to stand on the podium. Winning an Olympics is hard.

Kaufhold made a huge gamble in 2022, dropping out of college to focus on these Games.

“Competing and winning to me is addictive,” she told USA Archery recently. “I’ve worked my whole life to be able to represent the stars and stripes.”

You’re starting to forget she’s just 20. 

Kaufhold’s got the mental game – she’s a set system archer, a matchplay winner, a tussler. But her pure scoring power isn’t line-leading. Her average arrow in 2024? 9.20.

Top Korean Lim Sihyeon has 9.41.

Will Casey’s confidence be enough?

Did you know?

The USA has won three women’s archery medals at the Olympics.

Doreen Wilber was Olympic Champion in 1972, Luann Ryon in 1976.

The most recent medal was won by the team at Seoul 1988 – where the event made its debut. Debra Ochs, Denise Parker and Melanie Skillman won bronze after tying with Indonesia on points in second place and then losing the subsequent nine-arrow tiebreaker.

Casey, Jennifer Mucino and Catalina Gnoriega arrive in Paris as the reigning Pan American Champion recurve women’s team. They have a serious shot in that event, too.