MEDELLIN, Colombia – Brady Ellison and Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez are having themselves quite the World Cup Stage 3 with both on course for gold in the recurve mixed team and individual events after a fantastic Friday.
In the individual event, Ellison, the ninth seed, will tackle Italy's Mauro Nespoli, with Mucino-Fernandez facing women’s top seed Sihyeon Lim of Korea. En route to the last four, Ellison saw off the men’s top seed Woojin Kim (KOR).
Across both the men’s and women’s divisions, the USA had three archers in the quarterfinals of the recurve; the other being Jack Williams.
The pairing of Ellison and Mucino-Fernandez will come together as the recurve mixed team on Sunday morning, where they will meet Lim and Kim for the gold medal, this after they defeated Brazil, China and Chinese Taipei in earlier rounds.
Elsewhere on Friday, and only a shoot-off defeat denied Liko Arreola and James Lutz a spot in the semifinals of the compound mixed team event. They and Mexico each scored 158 after four ends, before their North American neighbors edged them by the narrowest of margins in the two-arrow shoot-off.
Saturday’s action begins with the compound women team gold medal match, involving a USA trio with World Cup debutants Liko Arreola and Olivia Dean, alongside Alexis Ruiz. They face host nation Colombia.
The afternoon session involves individual compound semifinals, starting with Arreola versus Sarah Prieels (BEL) and Ruiz against Sara Lopez (COL). Once medals are determined in the women’s division, the men step up for their semifinals, among them an all-USA affair with Nick Kappers facing James Lutz.
There are four World Cup stages, before the final in Mexico in September. As well as Turkey, China and Colombia, there is also a stage in France.
Stage 4: Paris, France – August 15-20
Final: Hermosillo, Mexico – September 9-10
