Round-up: Paris hosts fourth World Cup stage and Olympic test event

The fourth stage of this year’s Hyundai Archery World Cup, which concluded on Sunday in Paris, acted as the Olympic test event and completed the line-up for the end-of-season grand finale in Mexico mid-September.

The depth of quality was showcased once more, with three individual winners celebrating their first successes of the season.

Ella Gibson, Casey Kaufhold and Kim Woojin each booked their places at the Hyundai World Cup Final in Hermosillo, with Jozef Bosanksy the only winner to have previously occupied the top of a World Cup podium in 2023 – at the opening stage in Antalya.

The two dominant nations in the team events left nothing but crumbs for their opponents, Korea taking all three recurve gold medals and India all three in compound.

Korea’s women bounced back from World Championship disappointment – in Berlin early August – in the best way possible in the recurve team competition while several Olympic markers were laid down over the course of a successful test event.

The 32-athlete line-up for Hermosillo is now almost complete, as the host country Mexico only has to fill its four invitation places.

Key takeaways

Parisian setting whets the appetite. Set against the backdrop of the magnificent Hôtel des Invalides, the picturesque venue provided a selection of Olympic clues in the recurve individual events. The French crowds showed the sort of impact they could have by roaring Lisa Barbelin through to a gold medal match which victor Kaufhold described as “one of the loudest matches I’ve ever shot in”. The 19-year-old US archer held her nerves to continue her affinity with the ‘City of Love’, where she backed up last year’s mixed team gold with a maiden individual World Cup gold.

Korea is back. Korea may have come away from Berlin with two World Championship golds but that fell below expectations. The recurve women’s team, in particular, would have been eager to bounce back following their early exit against Indonesia and did so in style by winning gold. The men’s and mixed teams simply built on their World Championship successes with victories here while there was also a vastly improved display in the individual competitions. Just one Korean, Kim Je Deok, made the recurve men’s individual last eight in Berlin but Kim Woojin and Lee Woo Seok were back to their best in Paris, contesting a gold medal match won by Kim – who will now defend his World Cup Final crown next month.

Puerto Rico makes history. Jean Pizarro will not forget his trip to Paris in a hurry. Alongside Paola Ramirez, he helped secure his country’s first-ever World Cup team medal in the compound mixed team, the pair overcoming Kazakhstan, Korea and Mexico before prevailing in a shoot-off against Denmark to secure a place in the gold medal match. USA’s Kris Schaff and Alexis Ruiz proved too strong in the final but silver still made history, while Pizarro went on to earn individual bronze by beating Austria’s Stefan Heincz.

Winners: Paris 2023

See full results online.

• Recurve men: Kim Woojin, Korea
• Recurve women: Casey Kaufhold, USA
• Compound men: Jozef Bosansky, Slovakia
• Compound women: Ella Gibson, Great Britain
• Recurve men team: Korea
• Recurve women team: Korea
• Recurve mixed team: Korea
• Compound men team: India
• Compound women team: India
• Compound mixed team: India

Top of the medal table was the Korea (four gold, one silver, two bronze), followed by USA (two gold, one silver) and India (two gold, three bronze).

A total of 381 archers from 58 countries competed in the fourth and last stage of the 2023 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Paris, France. Qualification and eliminations took place in the Charléty Stadium field on 15-18 August, followed by finals at the Esplanade des Invalides on 19-20 August.

The finals weekend also served as the official test event for Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The international circuit now moves to Hermosillo, Mexico, for the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final on 9-10 September – the 2023 end-of-season highlight.