Actualités

Preview: World field championships return to Yankton

20 septembre 2026

Yankton (USA)

Vrai nom:

The Yankton 2026 World Archery Field Championships begin this week in South Dakota, USA, at the Lewis and Clark Recreation Area and NFAA Easton Yankton Archery Center, with world titles available in senior and under-21 categories.

It’s the 29th edition of the championships, which date back to 1969, when the tournament was also held in the USA. A long list of World and Olympic Champions have also won medals in the field discipline, with Italian legend and Olympic gold medallist Michele Frangilli describing field competition as the “university of archery”.

Many well-known recurve and compound target archers are competing at the 2026 edition, including defending champion Brady Ellison, Casey Kaufhold, Mathias Fullerton, Ella Gibson, Mike Schloesser, Paige Pearce, Nico Wiener, Nicolas Girard, Florian Unruh, Chiara Rebagliati and Willem Bakker. Kaufhold, the world number four, is competing at her first field worlds.

The competition has a particular focus on barebow, one of the two “majors” of the discipline.

The top barebow competitors include many previous World and World Games medallists and finalists, with Cinzia Noziglia, Simone Barbieri, Oliver Hicks, Simon Fairweather, Nicky Fairweather, Cesar Vera Bringas, Alicia Baumert, David Jackson, Erik Jonsson, Ludvig Rohlin and Leo Pettersson all appearing in Yankton.

As is standard with World Archery field events, the competitors will shoot an unmarked course of 24 targets on the first day, followed by a different marked course of 24 targets on the second day, before eliminations and finals.

The event will be followed by the World 3D Archery Championships at the same venue.

Key information

What’s happening? The 29th edition of the biennial World Archery Field Championships, held for the second time in Yankton, South Dakota, USA, after the previous edition in 2022.

What’s at stake? Titles in individual and team events across recurve, compound and barebow, in senior and under-21 categories.

Who’s competing? A total of 244 archers representing 31 nations.

What’s the story? This year’s event is larger than the previous edition and promises some stellar competition, with five of the six individual champions returning from Lac La Biche 2024. It will be immediately followed by the World 3D Archery Championships at the same venue, with some athletes competing in both competitions.

Defending champions

These are the senior archers defending their titles from Lac La Biche 2024:

Recurve men: Brady Ellison, USA
Recurve women: Roberta Di Francesco, Italy
Compound men: Mike Schloesser, Netherlands
Compound women: Paige Pearce, USA
Barebow men: Cesar Vera Bringas, Spain
Barebow women: Fawn Girard, USA (not competing)

Schedule

Wednesday 23 September: Unmarked qualification
Thursday 24 September: Marked qualification and individual eliminations
Friday 25 September: Individual and team eliminations
Saturday 26 September: Individual finals
Sunday 27 September: Team finals

How to watch

Watch live footage of the finals on Saturday 26 September and Sunday 27 September with a subscription to archery+.

Live scores will be available on the World Archery website, with coverage across World Archery’s digital platforms throughout the competition.

Competition format

There are two phases to competition at this year’s World Archery Field Championships: qualification and eliminations.

Qualification takes place over two days. The first day consists of 24 unmarked targets, where the distances are unknown, and the second day consists of 24 marked targets, where the distances are known. Archers shoot three arrows per target – 72 per day in total – and the maximum score per arrow is six points for an inner yellow.

The maximum score in qualification is 864 points (432 per day).

Targets can be 80, 60, 40 or 20 centimetres in diameter. Barebow archers shoot at targets set between 5 and 50 metres away. Recurve and compound archers shoot at targets set between 10 and 60 metres away.

The top 24 qualifiers in categories with 24 or more archers, or the top 16 in categories with fewer than 24 archers, advance to matchplay, in which archers shoot head-to-head over a set number of targets, with the highest scorer advancing and the lower scorer being eliminated.

Matches in the 1/12 round, 1/8 round and quarterfinals are contested over six marked targets.

Semifinals and finals consist of four targets.

The winner of each category is awarded the title of World Archery Field Champion.

Who’s competing?

A total of 244 archers from the following 31 national teams are registered to compete in Yankton:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and USA.

These are the top-ranked target archers competing in Yankton: