Team USA had an impressive showing at the archery stadium today, garnering two-thirds of the overall competition medals.
The U.S .women swept the individual recurve competition with Lee Ford (Perry, Ga.) winning the gold.
"I'm overwhelmed, happy. I thought the scoring was wrong, and I was so in the moment of shooting my shot, so I was shocked to realize I had won. This has been such an amazing opportunity."
Teammate Natalie Wells (San Diego, Calif.) won silver, and D'Arce Hess (Nevada City, Calif.) claimed the bronze.
"This is the best venue we've ever shot at by far," said Hess. "The competitive field was really strong talent-wise, and this whole experience really has me looking forward to the Paralympics next year."
In the men's competition, Sergeant Michael Lukow (Alamosa, Colo.), won silver in the individual recurve competition. Sergeant Lukow, a member of the Army's Paralympic World Class Athlete Program had this to say about the competition, "The venue was great, the competition was really good, and I shot the best I could."
Army Veteran Russell Wolfe (Willamsburg, Va.) won the individual recurve bronze medal match in a tiebreaker. In the end, it all came down to one arrow.
"I'm ecstatic - it's the first tiebreaker I've won," said Wolfe. "It's a big mental game and something you can't train for, so I always try to compete as if every arrow is that single winning arrow."
U.S. teammates Matthew Stutzman (Fairfield, Iowa) and Army veteran Dugie Denton (Joilet, Mont.) faced off against one another in the men's individual compound open division with Denton edging out Stutzman in three sets.
"It's just another competition. You really can't think about competing against your teammate or you'll hurt yourself," said Denton. You just have to turn the switch off, focus on doing the best you can, because it's really just another arrow in the target. This has been a really exciting competition, and it gets me really excited for London."
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