Shanghai World Cup Tips Off Stage Two | Archery Weekly April 28 – May 4, 2026

Welcome back to Archery Weekly, your seven-day download on everything that moved the bowsports world from April 28 through May 4, 2026. The headline this week is impossible to miss: the Hyundai Archery World Cup arrives in Shanghai, and the entry list reads like a Murderers’ Row of compound and recurve talent. Add a barebow world record from Malaysia, a stacked European Para Archery Championships in Rome, the NFAA Western Classic Trail Shoot dropping arrows in Redding, and Sara Lopez’s official return to international competition with LA28 in her sights — and you have one of the busier news weeks of the spring.

Pour a coffee, check your nocks, and let us run through the seven stories that mattered most.

1. Shanghai 2026 Tips Off World Cup Stage Two With All Four World No. 1s On The Line

The biggest event on the calendar this week is the second stage of the 2026 Hyundai Archery World Cup, which opens May 5 at the Yuanshen Sports Centre and finishes May 10 at the Pudong Riverside Financial Plaza. Three hundred and twenty archers from 44 countries are descending on Shanghai, and for the first time in years all four reigning recurve and compound world No. 1s — Brady Ellison (USA), Kang Chaeyoung (KOR), Mike Schloesser (NED) and Andrea Becerra (MEX) — are entered in the same event.

The five names worth bookmarking before qualification: James Lutz arrives carrying a fresh 50-metre compound men’s world record (719 points) and is hunting his first outdoor World Cup podium since Tlaxcala 2024. Sanne de Laat of the Netherlands is fresh off Gwangju mixed-team gold with Schloesser. Tang Chih-Chun of Chinese Taipei follows his Puebla silver and is widely viewed as Asia’s next breakthrough recurve men’s medalist with the Asian Games on the horizon. Jang Minhee, the 2021 World Archery Champion, finally makes her senior World Cup debut for Korea — a delayed first appearance that has been five years in the making. And Marie Horackova of Czechia, the 2023 world champion, brings momentum from her Spring Arrows silver medal in Antalya the previous week.

For gear hunters, Shanghai is also where you watch the new flagship cams, releases, and stabilizers earn their bona fides under live conditions. If you are spec’ing out a new compound rig this season, our 2026 compound bow buying guide is worth a re-read alongside the qualification rounds.

2. Mijno Tops Para Qualification In Rome As Italy Eyes A Fifth European Title

Across the Mediterranean, the European Para Archery Championships kicked off in Rome on April 28 — the first stop of the 2026 Para circuit and a critical points event for the LA28 Paralympic qualification race. According to World Archery’s tournament wire, Italian veteran Elisabetta Mijno topped W1 women’s qualification on home soil and is now in pole position to claim a fifth European title.

The story matters beyond Italy. Rome 2026 is the first major Para event since the new World Archery rules cycle took effect in April, and several federations are fielding athletes from new pathway programs — including Britain’s “Pathway to Podium” group and Korea’s recently reorganized Para development squad. Expect close finals across the W1, recurve open, and compound open categories, with Türkiye, France, and Great Britain all bringing podium-capable rosters.

For club archers training adaptive shooters, watching how the W1 athletes manage release timing under pressure is a masterclass. The current generation of Para archers is shooting tighter groups than the recurve open division did a decade ago — a signal of how rapidly equipment, coaching, and athlete identification have matured in this discipline.

3. Malaysia Sets New Barebow Men’s Team World Record In Shah Alam

On May 1 the Malaysian men’s barebow team rewrote the record book, setting a new world record at a sanctioned event in Shah Alam and adding 18 points to the previous mark. World Archery confirmed the score the same evening. For a discipline that has spent the last three years quietly inching its way back into mainstream attention, this is a real statement — and it comes from a federation that has historically been more associated with compound development than traditional shooting styles.

If you have been on the fence about barebow as a competitive style, this is the moment to pay attention. Modern barebow uses a stripped recurve riser and limbs with no sights, no stabilizers, no clicker, and string walking as the primary aiming method. The technical depth is enormous, and the equipment cost of entry is genuinely lower than full Olympic recurve or competitive compound. World Archery has expanded barebow categories at the World Field Championships and the World Indoor Series, and this Malaysia record will pour gasoline on the development pipeline across Southeast Asia.

For an entry-level frame on what string walking actually is and why it matters, our piece on arrow spine and fletching selection covers the equipment-side fundamentals that translate directly to barebow tuning.

4. NFAA Western Classic And Marked 3D National Championship Light Up Redding

While the international circuit pulled toward Shanghai and Rome, North America had its own marquee weekend: the NFAA 32nd Annual Marked 3D National Championship, run alongside the 42nd Annual Western Classic Trail Shoot from May 1–3 at the legendary range complex in Redding, California. The Western Classic is, by any honest measure, the largest marked 3D event on the planet — and 2026 set a participation high mark, with field, target, and freestyle archers shooting across some of the most punishing terrain on the calendar.

What makes Redding matter for everyday archers is the gear evolution it forces. The trail-shoot format mixes uphill, downhill, weird-angle, and partially obscured presentations across distances most clubs never simulate. That selects ruthlessly for tuned rigs, well-fletched arrows, and rangefinder discipline. Bow companies routinely use the Western Classic as a real-world torture test for new releases — expect the early Redding chatter to drive next-quarter compound flagship marketing.

If you have been thinking about stepping up from paper-target shooting to your first 3D event, this is the year. Our 3D archery shoots beginner’s guide covers the seven essentials — distance estimation, shot positions, and the unwritten range etiquette that separates rookies from regulars.

5. Sara Lopez Returns To Competition With LA28 Squarely In View

One of the most quietly significant stories of the week broke April 30, when Colombian compound legend Sara Lopez confirmed her return to international competition — and pointed her preparation directly at the LA28 Olympic qualification window. World Archery’s profile piece, presented by WIAWIS, framed her comeback as “unfinished business,” which is exactly how it reads on paper.

Lopez, the most decorated compound women’s archer of the modern era, stepped back from the most demanding parts of the World Cup circuit during the Paris Olympic cycle. Her return matters for two reasons. First, World Archery’s lobbying for compound’s inclusion in the Olympic program has been gaining real traction, and Lopez is the most visible global ambassador the discipline has. Second, on a pure competitive level, her return reshapes the compound women’s draw — and forces every Mexican, Indian, and American shooter to recalibrate.

For compound shooters, the Lopez tape is required film study. Her release timing under pressure, her management of the back tension trigger, and her routines between shots are the technical reference standard. If you are coaching a junior compound shooter through executor-vs-pull-through release decisions, watch Lopez’s shot cycle and let it teach.

6. USA Archery Pushes On Two Fronts: OAS Nationals And A New Para Talent ID Program

It was a busy domestic week for USA Archery. On April 28 the federation launched its 2026 Para Talent ID Program, designed to identify and develop the next wave of Paralympic-eligible athletes ahead of LA28. The program builds on the recently completed pathway work that has put more American Para archers into international medal contention than at any point in the last decade.

At the same time, California schools have surged to the front of the 2026 Olympic Archery in Schools (OAS) National Championship preparation, with multiple programs reporting record participation numbers and new state grants for equipment refresh. The OAS pipeline matters: it feeds JOAD, which feeds USAT, which feeds the senior national team. Healthy numbers at the OAS level are how the United States closes the recurve gap with Korea over the next decade.

Add USA Archery’s announcement that JOAD Lifetime Achievement Award nominations are now open, plus the public vote for the federation’s six-finalist t-shirt design contest, and the takeaway is clear: American grassroots archery is in the middle of a real institutional push. If you coach JOAD or run a club program, this is the moment to send the federation your athlete and volunteer nominations.

7. Spring Turkey Bowhunting Hits Peak Weeks In May

For the bowhunting half of the audience, the calendar could not be more friendly. Pennsylvania’s spring turkey season opens May 2 and runs through May 30, with the back half of the month moving to all-day shooting hours after May 18. Minnesota’s archery-eligible spring season runs through May 31. Massachusetts opened April 27 and runs through May 23, and Indiana’s window stays open through May 10.

Per OutdoorHub’s 2026 spring turkey roundup, this season has unusually favorable weather forecasts across the Midwest and Northeast, and gobbler activity numbers from the early-state openers (Florida, South Carolina) are tracking above the five-year average. Turkey bowhunters report strong response to mid-morning calling sequences as the breeding peak winds down — a meaningful shift in tactic from the early-season fly-down approach.

From a gear standpoint, two reminders: confirm your broadhead’s mechanical-vs-fixed legality in your state of hunt (it varies more than people think), and verify minimum draw weight requirements. Massachusetts, for example, mandates 40 pounds at 28 inches and 7/8-inch minimum broadhead width. Skipping the regulation check is the most preventable way to ruin a turkey opener.

Highlight Reel: Compound Highlights From The Last World Cup Stage

If you want to get into the right headspace before Shanghai qualification opens, World Archery’s compound highlight package from the previous tournament is the right ten minutes:

Looking Ahead

The next seven days are dense. Here is what we are watching from the Archery Supplier desk:

• Shanghai 2026 finals weekend (May 9–10): Recurve and compound individual and mixed team finals at Pudong Riverside Financial Plaza. Watch for early signals on Korea’s recurve men’s depth and on whether James Lutz can close out his first outdoor World Cup gold.
• Rome 2026 European Para Archery Championships finals: Mijno’s path to a fifth title runs through a tough Türkiye and Great Britain bracket. Expect medals decided by single-arrow margins.
• NFAA Western Classic results and category rankings: The aggregate scores from Redding will reset the marked 3D Shooter of the Year leaderboard ahead of the Field Nationals.
• Spring turkey peak window: Pennsylvania moves to all-day hunting hours May 18 — the most flexible week of the season for working archers.
• USA Archery program announcements: Watch for the next OAS National Championship participation breakdown and the close of the JOAD Lifetime Achievement nominations.

If you missed the previous edition, you can catch up on last week’s Archery Weekly covering the Pagni-to-Korea coaching bombshell — a story that is going to keep generating ripples all season as Korea ramps its compound program.

Keep your form honest, keep your nocks straight, and we will see you back here next Monday.