China spoils USA’s homecoming party at season opener in Florida
There was no Hyundai Archery World Cup homecoming glory for USA in the recurve women’s gold medal match, as China defeated the host nation at Central Florida 2025.
The visiting squad of Huang Yuwei, Li Jiaman and Zhu Jingyi secured a 5-3 victory in the gold medal match, spoiling the party for the USA trio of Catalina Gnoriega, Casey Kaufhold and Jennifer Mucino in front of their vocal friends and family.
Despite starting and finishing strong with 56 points in the first and final sets, damage was done in the middle of the match, with all three archers shooting sevens, tallying 51 and 50 points in the second and third sets, respectively.
In contrast, the Chinese team dropped only one set below 55 points, with reigning circuit champion Li Jiaman contributing eight 10s.
“I’m so happy,” said Huang, wearing her first international senior medal. “Even though I won the gold medal, I have a lot of things to improve.”
Saturday morning’s session at Lake Myrtle Sports Complex marked the World Cup stage debuts for 20-year-old Huang and 18-year-old Zhu.
Despite their inexperience, the Chinese trio never looked out of place, with the sheer intensity of all three archers matching the intensity of the moment. Huang in particular showed no signs of stress even after opening with a seven.
“It’s not because of the nerves, but I aimed at the wrong area. Then I adjusted and it became better,” she explained.
China’s steeliness was a stark contrast to the palpable frustration among the more experienced USA team, who had hoped to secure their first women’s team World Cup gold since 2015.
After shooting a seven in the third set, Mucino looked at her bow in bemusement, gazing in astonishment, as her team’s chances of victory slipped away.
“We don’t want our bad shots, but they’re necessary at some point to learn from,” said the Medellin 2023 bronze medallist. “It wasn’t a good shot, it could have been better. It was at the end of an end, so it didn’t matter realistically, even if it wasn’t a seven.”
“The bow was fine, it was just me.”
Meanwhile, Mexico triumphed once again in the recurve mixed team event, defeating Spain 5-3, the final end being a 39, one off a rare perfect score of 40.
The duo of Matias Grande and Alejandra Valencia, both top-10 world-ranked athletes, are one of archery’s most formidable pairs on the world stage. But with only World Cups and continental championships in their medal cabinet thus far, the 2024 Pan American Champion Grande knows there’s still work to be done, to add a World Archery Championships medal in Gwangju later this year.
“I think we need to keep working hard and not show too much confidence,” said the 20-year-old. “We know all the teams work very hard, so we need to keep pushing hard and keep enjoying as we do.”
Competition in Central Florida concludes with recurve individual finals in the afternoon.
Podiums: Central Florida 2025
Full results on the event page.
Recurve men’s team
- China (Kao Wenchao, Wang Yan, Li Zhongyuan)
- India (Atanu Das, Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tarundeep Rai)
- Chinese Taipei (Su Yu-Yang, Tai Yu-Hsuan, Tang Chih-Chun)
Recurve women’s team
- China (Li Jiaman, Zhu Jingyi, Huang Yuweig)
- USA (Catalina Gnoriega, Casey Kaufhold, Jennifer Mucino)
- Chinese Taipei (Li Cai Xuan, Chiu Yi-Ching, Hsu Hsin-tzu)
Recurve mixed team
- Mexico (Alejandra Valencia, Matias Grande)
- Spain (Elia Canales, Pablo Acha)
- Germany (Michelle Kroppen, Florian Unruh)
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