Brady: “I Am the Indoors Bronze Medal King”

Since the World Archery Indoor Championships in 2012, held in Las Vegas, the recurve men’s bronze medal has gone to only one man: The USA’s Brady Ellison.

It wasn’t hard to see disappointment in Brady’s body language when he was beaten in the semifinals in Ankara earlier in the week by eventual runner-up Sergii Makarevych. After putting just one arrow out of the 10-ring through 12 sets in three phases of matchplay, Ellison posted another two 30s to start the semi.

He shot an uncharacteristic eight in the third set and lost his momentum in the match, which Sergii went on to win with a perfect 30 in the closing three-arrow series.

Ever the competitor, especially in the finals arena, Brady had collected himself and his zero on the 10-ring in plenty of time for a bronze final against Italy’s Massimiliano Mandia.

“I missed my first two and then I was good,” said Brady. He put his opening pair of shots into the nine then remained clean for the rest of the duration of the full-length final.

“The finals field was awesome – I loved the loudness– but the lighting was so completely different from the practice range that your sight, the target, the string were all glaring. Getting sighted in quickly was the key.”

“I wasn’t worried. I figured that if my first one hit it would be good but, if it didn’t, not to be scared about it – and hope that he didn’t shoot four 30s in a row.”

Max only took an arrow to find the middle, opposite from Brady on the line, and took the first set, then the pair split the second, leaving the score at 3-1 in the Italian archer’s favour.

Brady levelled the match in the third set, taking advantage of a wayward series from his opponent.

“I had one bad set when I shot 9-8-9. I did one of my errors that can make the arrow go to the left,” explained Max. He never fully recovered. Two arrows out of the 10-ring was two too many in the fourth and the advantage in the match had flipped. Brady led at 5-3.

“I closed with a 30, but Brady is a man with strong mind that if he wants to take the match and give pressure, he can do it,” said Max. Brady, too, closed with a 30, and took the match – and his third consecutive World Archery Indoor Championships individual recurve men’s bronze medal – with six set points to Massimiliano’s four.

“I am the indoor bronze medal King,” joked an up-beat Brady after the match, who said he thought his 2015/16 indoor season might have been his best ever.

Ellison climbed the podium at each event his competed in this indoor season.

He took gold in Bangkok, at the second stage of the Indoor Archery World Cup, then bronze in Nimes – and then won the Indoor Archery World Cup Final for a third time, matching his unparalleled record on the outdoor circuit.

“I’m definitely happy with my ranking round scores, too. I’ve shot 595, 597, a 598, 895 in Vegas and then another 595 here,” added Brady. The 598 would have broken the recurve men’s qualification world record had it been shot in a world record status competition.

“I was chasing that world record all year, and I’ve got two more chances at indoor nationals and we’ll see what happens, but either I’m happy with this indoor season. Hopefully it rolls into outdoors.”

The recurve men’s world title in Ankara went to reigning European indoor champion Heorhiy Ivanytskyy.

He beat Ukrainian teammate Sergii Makarevych in five sets in the final. Ivanytskyy said he took revenge for a recent loss to Sergii in the Ukrainian national championships.