15 out of 16 total Gold Medals won by Hoyt Shooters at 3 World Class Tournaments
The South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, hosted one of the largest gatherings of World Class archers in recent history with three events taking place - The World Indoor Archery Championships, Indoor World Cup Final and The World Archery Festival.
World Indoor Championships
The action started off with the World Indoor Championships, held every two years, where athletes compete for both individual titles and team titles for their countries. With four main divisions in the Indoor World Championships, (Men's Compound, Women's Compound, Men's Recurve and Women's Recurve) the competition starts out with a 60 arrow qualification round to rank the archers. Only the top 32 get to move on and compete head to head in match play for a chance to reach the finals. In the Men's Compound category, two-time Indoor World Champion, Reo Wilde USA, decisively won every match down to the final gold medal match and notched his third individual World Indoor title. Hoyt shooters Ricardo Fierro MEX, defeated Guillaume Rubben FRA for the Bronze medal.
In the Women's Compound category, three Hoyt Pro Staff shooters made a clean sweep of the podium. Viktoria Balzhanova RUS, Inge Van Caspel NED and Linda Ochoa MEX, made quick work of their competition and took the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals respectively.
The Men's Recurve division saw some serious competition with the 2004 Olympic Gold medallist, Marco Galiazzo winning the gold, Jake Kaminski USA winning the silver and World Cup dominator, Brady Ellison winning the bronze.
Women's recurve veteran, Natalia Valeeva ITA, shot her way to victory to win the Gold, notching a clean 4 out of 4 gold medals for team Hoyt.
Indoor World Cup Final
Second on the list was the Indoor World Cup Final, where archers who competed in two of three Indoor World Cup stages (Singapore, Nimes France and Las Vegas USA) would battle for ranking to make the cut for the top 16 and go on for gold. Team Hoyt racked up 3 out of 4 Gold Medals at this hotly contested final.
Fresh off his World Championship victory, Reo Wilde did not let up at all. Wilde, the 2011 Indoor World Cup Final victor, defended his title and won every match and shot a perfect score of 120 to clinch his second Gold Medal of the week.
The Women's Compound action was equally as intense with fellow teammates, Joanna Chesse and Sandrine Vandionant, taking the Gold and Silver for France. Naomi Jones GBR defeated her opponent to win the Bronze.
Like the Compound Women, the Recurve men's Gold medal match was a faceoff between two fellow teammates. Representing the USA, Brady Ellison and Jake Kaminski had a close match with Ellison winning the Gold and Kaminski winning the Silver. Thomas Aubert FRA also had a strong showing taking fourth place. In the women's recurve division, Lisa Unruh GER, had a strong showing and won the Bronze.
World Archery Festival (Vegas Shoot)
The Grand Finale of the week was the famous World Archery Festival, arguably the most talked about and most difficult tournament to win in each respective class. Archers from around the globe gather to compete in the many different disciplines and classes of archery. Each style of archery has a championship division, where the best of the best test their mettle and shoot for the top spots. Archers compete on the "Vegas 3-spot" target, shooting 30 scored arrows each day over three days, for a total possible score of 900. And Team Hoyt was there claiming all eight wins in the highly competitive Championship divisions. This feat, winning every single championship division, had never been accomplished by a single bow manufacturer until 2012 when Team Hoyt shooters raced to the top in every single championship category.
In the Freestyle Unlimited Championship Male division, seven Hoyt shooters; Jesse Broadwater, Russell Payne, Reo Wilde, Sergio Pagni, Garrett Abernethy and Keith Trail made the seemingly impossible "900" score look easy. All archers tied with the coveted 900 score go into a sudden death shoot off and they're eliminated if they miss the nickel sized X-ring (A nickel is a US 5 cents coin and its diameter is 21.21mm or .835", whereas the Australian 5 cents coin diameter is 19.41mm or .764"). At the end of the shoot-off, it all came down to Hoyt Pro Staffer Jesse Broadwater, who outlasted them all and clinched his second Vegas victory in style with a perfect three X end.
In the Freestyle Unlimited Championship Female Division two Hoyt shooters claimed the top two spots. The 2011 Champion, Erika Anschutz USA, defended her title with a winning score of 899/900. In a close second was Hoyt shooter Karina Marshall AUS.
The highly competitive Freestyle Championship Senior Division was dominated by Tony Harbaugh, and the Freestyle limited Championship division was won by Vegas veteran and USA Paralympic team member Jeff Fabry. The instinctive skill of Rick Stark, once again dominated the Barebow Championship division.
Since the World Championships were in town, the Men's and Women's Recurve Championship divisions saw more action than ever. Brady Ellison took the win with a record score and made his mark with his third consecutive podium finish of the week and Hoyt Pro, Crispin Duenas CAN, finished in second. Isabel Viehmaier GER, claimed the win in the Recurve Championship Female division.
The Vegas shoot isn't only for target shooters, many top ranked bowhunters gather to test their nerves of steel in the Bowhunter Championship division. This year there were two Hoyt wielding bowhunters that stood on top of the podium. Darrin Davis and past 3-D World Champion, Dave Stepp, placed first and second respectively.
Once again, Hoyt shooters raised the bar and showed that unmatched skill and preparation paired with the incredible accuracy and forgiveness of Hoyt bows leads to domination and podium appearances. Congratulations to all of Team Hoyt and to all the shooters who participate during the past week.
