CHICAGO, IL – As they did in Leg 1 in Mexico last month, the USA topped the medal table following the second leg of the 2025 Americas Para Archery Cup, which ended on Sunday in Chicago.
KJ Polish and Jason Tabansky repeated their feat with gold in their division. There was a first international gold for Kimberly Garcia, with silver medals won by Ryan Lindstrom and Karen Sternfeld. Bronze medals had earlier been secured by Wendy Gadner and Chris Hall.
Polish faced Daniel Comeau, the man he defeated 143-141 in Mexico for the compound men open gold medal. This time, the margin was even narrower. Polish needed a perfect score with his final set of three arrows to deny Comeau by one point in a 144-143 contest.
“Those are the moments I live for,” Polish said with a smile. “Those are more exciting, when you battle back and forth, and you have a great opponent.
“I’d lose a point, he’d gain a point. Those are the funnest matches in the world. A one-sided match isn’t fun. That kind of match … that’s why I do this.”
Comeau was not the only archer to push Polish close. Teammate Ephraim Tonn-Bourg almost caused an upset in the quarterfinals, only for Polish to edge victory 145-144.
The W1 men open was an all-American affair involving Tabansky and Lindstrom. On Monday, it will be the first anniversary of Tabansky winning gold at the Paralympic Games in Paris. Sat in the stands watching on that day was the man he faced in Chicago on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Lindstrom was inspired to take up the sport competitively, and has since made massive progress, to such an extent that he was sharing a finals field with the Paralympic champion. Tabansky took gold with a 134-120 victory, but afterwards paid tribute to his opponent and new teammate.
“To be able to inspire people to take up the sport is the reason I got into archery,” Tabansky commented. “I met Ryan in Paris and we hit it off right off the bat. We became friends, we’ve been talking.
“I’ve been trying to help him as much as I can throughout all the U.S. tournaments, and so to see him grow and hit his mark here - that means he’ll be my teammate – it gets me quite emotional. We’ve got competition (within W1), so the world better watch out, because we’re coming.”
Kimberly Garcia set a new Americas record with a 131-107 win in the W1 women open division over Juliana Cristina Ferreira da Silva (BRA). The previous high was 130, scored by compatriot Lisa Coryell in Dubai in 2022.
Making her international debut, Garcia appeared unruffled as she swept to the top of the podium during what is a busy time for the teenager. Her preparation for Chicago was disrupted as her focus was on starting college.
Karen Sternfeld, one of two archers from hosts North Side Archery Club, led her gold medal match 4-0 in recurve women open, only for Maria Monica Daza Guzman (COL) to fight back for a 6-4 win. Daza Guzman had earlier needed a one arrow shootoff to get past Candice Caesar (USA).
You can find a full list of scores and results, plus photos from four days of archery in Chicago. The next big event for a number of these archers will be the World Archery Para Championships, which take place in Korea in late September.
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