Archery Blog

USA Tops Pan Am Medals | Archery Weekly May 25-31, 2026

Posted on June 1, 2026May 31, 2026 by Tahric Finn

01
Jun

Team USA walked out of Medellín with 31 medals, three Pan American titles in a row, and two pending Masters world records to its name. That’s the headline story from a packed week of archery news between May 25 and 31, 2026 — but the international circuit didn’t stop there. Slovenia opened the 10th edition of Veronica’s Cup with another Masters compound world record, the Antalya European Outdoor Championships wrap finalized 78 quota places for the 2027 European Games in Istanbul, and Yankton, South Dakota officially became the U.S. capital of outdoor archery for the rest of the year. Here’s your weekly archery roundup with the results, the gear angles, and the buying windows that just opened.

Team USA Sweeps Pan Am Medal Table in Medellín

The 2026 Pan American Youth and Masters Championships ran May 24–28 at the Unidad Deportiva Andrés Escobar in Medellín, Colombia, and the United States walked away with the medal table for a third consecutive edition. Final count: 31 medals, split 11 gold, 9 silver, 11 bronze. Mexico finished second with 30, Colombia third on home soil with 22. Participation was the real story underneath the standings — 271 archers from 16 nations, nearly double the 139 who shot the 2022 edition.

The qualification round was where the heat showed up. Five Pan Am event records fell in a single day. Colombia’s Michelle Dayana Cardona Alvarez shot 698 in the compound U21 women’s qualification — one point off her own record from 2022. Her teammate Julián Gomez Zuluaga went 706 in compound U21 men, and 14-year-old Jeronimo Agudelo Bedoya posted 699 in compound U18 men. Guatemala’s Mariana Saravia Berthet broke the compound U18 women’s record at 691. Canada’s Janna Hawash improved her own recurve U21 women’s record by 11 points to 642.

For gear shoppers, those numbers matter more than the medal totals. Compound U18 and U21 scores sitting in the 690–706 range are within striking distance of senior-level qualification rounds — which is what happens when youth archers run the same release aids, scopes, and arrow spines as the seniors instead of “starter” packages. If you’re outfitting a U18 shooter for a national-level circuit, that’s the floor for performance now. Read the full medal table breakdown from World Archery for the head-to-head numbers.

Mark Williams Tops Off a Statement Week for Masters Recurve

USA Archery’s Mark Williams collected three gold medals in Medellín — but the gear-angle story is the two pending recurve 50+ world records he set on a single day, May 24. Williams and Janis Grellner shot 1239 over 144 arrows at 60 meters for the recurve 50+ mixed team world record, erasing the 1228 set by Bruce Arnold and Tatyana Muntyan of the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2024. Hours later, Williams teamed with Ali Gungoraydinoglu and Mark Hainline to put up 1897 over 216 arrows for the 50+ men’s team mark.

The Masters segment — archers 50 and up — is the fastest-growing target archery demographic in North America, and it’s also the most underserved by gear coverage. That’s an oversight. The 50+ category buys premium recurve risers, replaces limbs more often than youth shooters, and tends to favor longer 25-inch risers paired with medium-deflex limbs for the 60-meter round. Williams’ result is also a fitness story — a 1239 mixed team score at 60 meters requires both archers to hold center under pressure for 144 shots. World Archery has the shot-by-shot breakdown, and both records are now in the ratification queue.

Veronica’s Cup Kicks Off 10th Edition With Another World Record

Across the Atlantic, Slovenia’s Kamnik club opened the 10th anniversary edition of Veronica’s Cup on May 28 at the Arboretum Volčji Potok venue. The field was the deepest in the tournament’s history: roughly 390 archers from 40 countries, split across recurve and compound, senior plus U21 and U18.

Qualification on May 30 was a coin-toss kind of day in compound. Tim Jevsnik of Slovenia and Priyansh of India both shot 709 in the compound men’s round. Jevsnik took the top seed on countback after a tied shootoff. Estonia’s Meeri-Marita Paas, the defending champion and current world number ten, secured the compound women’s top seed at 706. In recurve, Kazakhstan’s two-time Olympian Ilfat Abdullin led with 669, and the Czech Republic’s Marie Horackova — the 2023 world champion — took the women’s top seed at 673.

The other headline from Kamnik: Slovakia’s Jozef Bosansky and Petra Kocutova pushed the compound 50+ mixed team world record to 1372 — a 19-point improvement on the 1353 they set themselves at the European Championships earlier in May. Two compound 50+ world records inside a single month tells you the segment isn’t just growing in participation. It’s outgrowing the equipment manufacturers’ assumptions about who’s shooting their flagship release aids and 50mm scopes. Full Veronica’s Cup qualification results are at World Archery.

Antalya Wrap: Türkiye’s Compound Sweep and the European Games Quota Map

The Antalya 2026 European Outdoor Championships finished on May 24, but the quota math kept generating headlines through the back half of the week. Türkiye claimed both compound individual titles on home soil — Hazal Burun became the first Turkish woman to win a European compound title, and the host nation’s compound program is now arguably the strongest in Europe. The Netherlands’ Sanne De Laat was the only double gold medalist of the championships, taking the compound women’s team plus mixed team.

The quota allocation released this week locks in 78 of the 96 recurve places for the 2027 European Games in Istanbul. Twenty-three member associations earned at least one spot. Italy and Türkiye lead the table with eight quota places each. France and Germany sit on seven. Full recurve men’s teams were awarded to Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Türkiye, and Slovenia. Full recurve women’s teams went to Belarus, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Türkiye. Two tiebreaker shootoffs decided individual quotas — Moldova’s Alexandra Mirca edged Hungary’s Lili Örkényi in recurve women, and Great Britain’s Luke Davis beat Estonia’s Robin Jaatma in compound men.

For European shoppers, the named athletes carrying these quota slots are the marketing brief for the next 18 months. The Netherlands’ Fenna Stallen took team gold at age 15 in her first senior championship. Türkiye’s Mete Gazoz and Elif Gokkir won recurve mixed team gold. Expect every limb and riser brand they shoot to show up on Istanbul-bound promotional material before the year is out. Last week we covered the on-field results in detail — see the previous archery weekly roundup for the medal-by-medal breakdown.

Yankton Locks Down a 10-Event Outdoor Season

The NFAA Easton Yankton Archery Center confirmed its full 2026 outdoor calendar on May 28, and it’s the most stacked tournament slate any single venue has run. Ten events from June through October. Two world championships back-to-back. An estimated 2,000+ athletes, 500 support staff, 500 volunteers, and 50+ countries on the ground. Local projections put the economic impact above $2.98 million.

The headline dates: USA Archery Field & 3D Nationals plus U.S. Team Trials kick off June 3–6. The IFAA World Field Archery Championships run July 27–31. The big one — the World Archery Field Championships and World Archery 3D Championships running concurrently from September 24 to October 4 — is the first time the two World Archery events have been paired at the same venue.

The buying angle here is field and 3D-specific gear. Stabilizer extensions, multi-pin and single-pin field sights, 3D-specific arrow setups (think shorter, stiffer, with field points instead of broadheads), and shot timers for known-distance practice all see their annual demand peak right now. If you’ve been waiting on a field rest or a hunter-class scope housing, the next eight weeks is when inventory turns over hardest. NFAA has the full schedule and registration links.

Sarah Hubbard Resets the Barebow World Record at 50 Meters

One discipline that almost never makes the top of weekly news rundowns just got a world record. Britain’s Sarah Hubbard shot 648 out of 720 in the barebow women’s 50-meter qualification round at the Archery GB National Tour Stage 2 in Coventry — improving Italy’s Giulia Mantilli’s 647 from June 2025 by a single point. The record is now in ratification.

Barebow is the fastest-growing recurve discipline globally, and it’s almost completely underserved by mainstream gear coverage. The truth is most “barebow buying guides” online were written by recurve archers who’ve never actually shot stringwalker — and it shows. A serious barebow setup needs a riser drilled for plunger position adjustment, a tab with a thumb or pinky shelf for face-walking, a plunger you can swap springs on without removing the button (the Beiter or Spigarelli ZT are still the standard), and a string built with no center serving wear point. Hubbard’s score on a barebow 144-arrow round at 50 meters works out to a 9-average across every shot. That isn’t a stockbow setup. If you’ve been on the fence about graduating to a competition-spec barebow rig, this is the result that should push you. World Archery has the full record context.

For archers exploring the discipline for the first time, we covered the basics in our recurve archery beginner guide — barebow shares the same riser-and-limb foundation, just without the sight, clicker, or long-rod stabilizer.

Looking Ahead

Veronica’s Cup eliminations finish in Kamnik on May 31, with the recurve and compound finals deciding 24 European-qualifier titles. The week of June 1–7 brings the USA Archery Field & 3D Nationals plus U.S. Team Trials in Yankton, with most of the country’s outdoor field roster locking in selection for the World Field Championships in September. The 2026 World Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya is the next major target circuit stop later in June — and that’s where the senior recurve and compound names you saw at Antalya European Championships will be back on the line.

The biggest gear-buying signal across this week’s news isn’t from a manufacturer. It’s the consistent appearance of Masters-segment athletes setting world records and dominating medal tables. If you’re a 50+ shooter and you’ve been getting outshot by your own equipment, the equipment side has caught up to you. Spend the money on the riser and the stabilizer that actually fits the round you shoot — the records are being set on gear that’s available at your local pro shop.

For more competition coverage and gear analysis, our bowhunting for beginners guide goes deep on the late-summer hunting season setup most of these field and 3D athletes are also gearing up for.

Sources

Tahric Finn

Leave a Reply Cancel reply