Sheetal Devi Breaks Own Record | Archery Weekly Jun 29-Jul 5

Seven days, one broken record, and a final that came down to a single point. That is the short version of the week’s archery news, and the long version is worth your time. The World Archery Para Series turned Nove Mesto into the story everyone was talking about, the able-bodied World Cup lined up its last shot at Saltillo qualification, and the gear side of the sport kept throwing new flagships at bowhunters who are already thinking about fall. Here is everything that mattered between June 29 and July 5.

Sheetal Devi Rewrites the Asian Compound Record at Nove Mesto

The second stage of the 2026 Hyundai World Archery Para Series ran June 30 to July 4 at Nove Mesto na Morave in Czechia, the sport’s traditional home, and Sheetal Devi walked in as the reigning World Archery Para Archer of the Year. She left having beaten the one archer nobody could touch all week: herself. In compound women’s qualifying she shot 697 out of 720, punched in 21 Xs, and finished a ridiculous 13 points ahead of the rest of the 177-archer field.

To put 697 in context, that is a score most able-bodied compound shooters would frame and hang on the wall. Devi shoots with her feet, drawing and releasing without arms, which is the kind of detail that makes a number like 697 stop feeling like a statistic. It topped the qualifying rankings outright and reset the Asian record she already owned.

Qualifying scores do not hand out medals, though, and the individual final proved it. Britain’s Jodie Grinham edged Devi 143–141 to take the compound women’s title, avenging the semifinal loss she suffered against the same opponent at the 2025 World Para Championships in Gwangju. It was the rematch the sport wanted, and this time the two-arrow margin fell the other way. Devi did not leave empty-handed, partnering Shyam Sunder Swami to compound mixed team gold with a 147–143 win over Indonesia.

Bhawna’s Triple Gold and a Home Win for Czechia

Devi grabbed the headlines, but the most decorated archer of the week was 21-year-old Bhawna of India, who walked away with three gold medals. She edged compatriot and Paralympian Pooja in a shoot-off for the recurve women’s individual title, then added recurve women’s team gold alongside her and mixed team gold with Paralympic champion Harvinder Singh. Three finals, three top steps of the podium — that is a stage that will follow her into the Asian Para Games squad she was named to earlier this year.

The recurve men’s title went to Italy’s Stefano Travisani, and Italy doubled up when Christian Seneca claimed the compound men’s gold for his first international title. The host nation got its moment too: Czechia’s world number one Sarka Pultar Musilova kept her unbeaten run alive with a 7–1 win in the W1 women’s final and collected medals across individual, team and mixed events. If you only watch one match from the week, make it Devi versus Grinham — the full replay is below.

Madrid Hosts the World Cup’s Final Regular Stage

While the para archers were shooting in Czechia, the able-bodied World Cup was loading its trucks for Spain. The Madrid stage — the fourth and final regular leg of the 2026 Hyundai Archery World Cup — runs July 7 to 12 at the Complutense National Stadium, with 392 archers from 51 countries in the field. It is the last chance to punch a ticket to the season-ending Grand Final in Saltillo, Mexico, this September, which raises the stakes on every ranking match.

India has been the story of the circuit so far, with recurve team gold in Shanghai and Dhiraj Bommadevara’s individual and mixed team wins in Antalya, so watch whether that momentum carries to Madrid. Spain named a full home squad hoping the Complutense crowd is worth a few points. Recurve and compound finals land on July 11–12, and if the first three stages are any guide, at least one of them will come down to a shoot-off. This is the kind of week that separates the archers who have already qualified from the ones who need one more good result — and pressure like that is exactly why the World Cup is worth following even before the Grand Final.

The 2026 Flagship Bows Worth Watching

Summer is when the new-bow hype finally meets real hands, and the 2026 class is stacked. PSE’s Sicario Carbon has been the speed talking point of the year, a carbon-riser hunting rig that rewrote the company’s own velocity record at 357 feet per second. Fast bows demand stiffer arrows and disciplined tuning, so if you chase one of these down, budget for the spine upgrade too.

Mathews answered with an all-new platform, the ARC series, offered in 30- and 34-inch axle-to-axle versions — the ARC 30 packs serious speed into a compact frame weighing under four pounds. Hoyt finally gave shooters a real tuning system of their own with the AX-3 and its XTS setup, which lets you correct both left-right and high-low tears instead of chasing one and fighting the other. And Bowtech’s Alliance walked off with Best New Bow honors at the ATA Show thanks to a reworked riser and an updated DeadLock cam, landing in the high-330s for IBO speed with a $1,499 starting price.

The honest take? None of these bows will out-shoot a well-tuned setup you already own. Speed sells, but forgiveness wins tournaments, and a $1,500 flagship with a sloppy rest and a mismatched release is slower on the scorecard than a mid-tier bow that is dialed in. If your budget is going anywhere this summer, start with the accessories that touch the string. A clean compound release aid and a properly weighted stabilizer will do more for your groups than 20 extra feet per second ever will.

Tim Gillingham’s Bowtech Comeback Keeps Paying Off

One of the more talked-about moves of the summer keeps generating results. Tim “The Hammer” Gillingham returned to Team Bowtech on June 11, and the pro shooter has already backed up the reunion on the ASA circuit with a third-place finish in Senior Known Pro — his second straight podium since coming back. Bowtech executive vice president Colin Legge called Gillingham’s return “a strong endorsement of the products, people, and vision driving our brand forward,” which is exactly the kind of thing you say when a decorated shooter picks your bow back up.

Pro endorsements move bows off shelves, and Gillingham’s name carries weight with the exact buyers eyeing a 2026 flagship. Whether his podiums translate to Alliance sales is the sort of thing that plays out over a season, not a press release, but the early scoreboard is doing the talking.

Broadheads and Bowhunting Gear Ahead of Fall

The competition calendar dominates midsummer, but bowhunters are already stocking up, and the manufacturers know it. New Archery Products expanded two of its broadhead lines for 2026, the kind of quiet product news that matters because broadheads are a repeat-purchase consumable — you shoot them, you dull them, you replace them right before season. The ATA Show also went public this year for the first time, opening the industry’s biggest event to consumers hunting for exactly this sort of gear.

If you are setting up hunting arrows now instead of in September, the smart order of operations is fixed head first, then tune to it — not the other way around. We break down the trade-offs in our guide to fixed versus mechanical broadheads, and it is worth reading before you commit an entire dozen shafts to one design. Practice heads that match your hunting weight let you burn reps without wrecking your good blades.

This Week in Archery News: By the Numbers

Some weeks the archery news is best read as a scoreboard. Here is where the past seven days landed:

• 697 — Sheetal Devi’s Asian-record compound qualifying score at Nove Mesto, 13 points clear of the field.
• 143–141 — Jodie Grinham’s winning margin over Devi in the compound women’s final.
• 3 — Gold medals won by India’s Bhawna across individual, team and mixed events.
• 392 — Archers from 51 countries entered for the Madrid World Cup, July 7–12.
• 357 fps — PSE Sicario Carbon’s record top speed, the number everyone is chasing this year.
• $1,499 — Starting price on Bowtech’s Best New Bow winner, the Alliance.

If you are new to reading match results, our primer on picking the right draw weight is a good next step — every one of these elite scores started with an archer who could hold their bow steady, and that begins with poundage you can actually control.

Looking Ahead

The next stretch of the calendar is loaded. Madrid crowns its World Cup champions July 11–12 and finalizes the Saltillo Grand Final field, so expect the qualification math to get tense fast. Right behind it, Yankton, South Dakota — the self-styled Archery Capital of the World — hosts the 2026 NFAA Outdoor Nationals and the IFAA World Field Championships from July 24 to 31, which turns the spotlight toward field archery and the gear that suits it. If you shoot field, that is the fortnight to watch for stabilizer and sight setups getting tested on uneven ground.

Further out, the World Cup Grand Final in Saltillo lands in September, and the fall bowhunting season will pull the gear conversation back toward broadheads and arrow builds. We will be back next Monday with another seven days of archery news — the World Cup finals alone should give us plenty to talk about.

Sources

1. World Archery — Official results and event coverage for the Para Series and World Cup.
2. Infinity Sport Asia — Sheetal Devi’s Asian record and Nove Mesto finals results.
3. World Archery — Madrid 2026 World Cup stage preview and schedule.
4. The Outdoor Wire — Tim Gillingham’s return to Team Bowtech.
5. Bowhunting.com — New compound bows for 2026, including PSE, Mathews, Hoyt and Bowtech.
6. NFAA — 2026 Outdoor Nationals and IFAA World Field Championships in Yankton.