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Ellison’s physical recovery helps secure top seed at Madrid

09 juillet 2025

Madrid, Spain

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Brady Ellison credited his physical recovery for securing top seed in the recurve men’s event at Madrid 2025 – the fourth stage of this year’s Hyundai Archery World Cup.

The Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist shot 688 on Wednesday evening to take his first World Cup pole position since Shanghai 2023, leading a 100-strong recurve men’s field at Vallehermoso Stadium.

Ellison, who has yet to medal individually outdoors this season, revealed that lingering shoulder injuries – including tears to his labrum and damage to both acromioclavicular and sternoclavicular joints – had held him back since the Pan American Games last year.

“We’ve got the injury healed up,” said the world number one. “My brain still wants to fight it, and we tried to relink my brain a couple of days ago. It seemed to really help today and gave me a bunch of control back, so I’m pretty excited right now.”

“We’ve done a lot of rehab, worked a lot, followed the right diet and got everything healed up. Now I’ve just got to get my brain to know that it’s all good – reprogramme some things that the body was doing to protect that shoulder.”

“I’m trying to get it to let go of protection and start doing what it wants to do – and I think we’re on a good track now.”

As someone who pulls sideways, twisting his hips while keeping his shoulder stable through the draw, recovering from such an injury hasn’t been easy for Ellison, even at his calibre. But grit and resilience have long defined the American’s career.

With individual golds at two Indoor World Series Finals, seven Archery World Cup Finals and three World Field Championships, Ellison has built one of the most decorated resumés in the sport – and remained a perennial contender through persistence and consistency.

His number one seed in Madrid is not only a marker of recovery but also a reward for the disciplined work behind the scenes.

“The weather was a lot better than the last World Cups,” the 2019 World Archery Champion added. “In Montana, it’s finally starting to get good for shooting outdoors, and I’ve just been able to practise a bunch.”

“My wife’s been giving me a ton of help and time, letting me shoot as much as I can.”

In recurve women’s qualifying, reigning Olympic Champion Lim Sihyeon secured her third consecutive World Cup pole position after also topping the ranking rounds in Shanghai and Antalya.

With afternoon sessions in Madrid pushed later than usual – beginning at 17h30 local time rather than 14h00 – archers have had more time to rest and prepare. Lim said the change made a difference.

“I took a long nap and ate a really big lunch,” she laughed. “I think eating a big lunch gave me a lot of energy throughout the qualification.”

“In the matches, I’m going to try to apply what I did during the qualification – things like good posture, aiming off and game sense – even better.”

Action resumes tomorrow in Madrid with recurve team eliminations in the morning, followed by compound eliminations in the late afternoon.