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Fullerton’s 599 tops stacked compounders qualifying in Lausanne

28 October 2023

Lausanne, Switzerland

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Mathias Fullerton during qualification at the Lausanne Challenge.

Reigning Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion Mathias Fullerton shot a career-best 599-point 60-arrow round to qualify top in a stacked compound men’s event at the season-opening event on the Indoor Archery World Series this morning.

Bayley Sargeant Buden (594), Steve Wijler (595) and Laura van der Winkel (575) also collected number one seeds at the Lausanne Challenge.

Twenty-year-old Fullerton, who had repeatedly posted promising finishes over the past three seasons before finally breaking through with his first major win in Hermosillo last month, came in two points ahead of world number one Mike Schloesser and Marco Bruno on 597.

“Definitely feels super good to start out on top. It’s super awesome to already have the level to shoot nearly maximum points this early in the season,” said the Dane, who is currently ranked fifth in the world. “Usually you’ll start lacking a bit of confidence and bow set-up, but I prepared well mentally and got things set up super solid.”

“I had a difficult start to the season, coming home from the World Cup Final to the news that the dog I grew up with all my life passed away while I shot in Mexico. He would always go to practise with me and ever since I had that dream of winning on the big stage, he was there,” he continued.

“So it was a little bit tough. But I kept showing up to train.”

All four top seeds came from this morning’s second session of qualifying rather than the early round shot on Friday at the World Archery Excellence Centre.

The recurve men’s top qualifier at this event, Steve Wijler, enters this 2024 season as the defending Indoor Archery World Series Champion and winner of two of the last four editions of the series.

There’s a long way to go in this event, let alone the four more stops of the series before the finals in Las Vegas.

“I really do love indoors. This is the first big competition of my indoor season. I just had one small local scoring round,” he said after finishing eight points up on second-seeded Florian Bossard this morning, five off a maximum.

“I would take that any day of the week, to be honest! I did a bunch of really decent shots that helped the score.”

Shooting in the under-21 age group, which will award circuit champions in Nîmes for a second straight year, Quinty Roeffen beat all the senior recurve women over the 60-arrow 18-metre qualifying round.

Her 583 was eight up on senior top qualifier (and Dutch teammate) Laura van der Winkel’s 575.

Bayley Seargant Buden’s leading score in the compound women, 594, is an eight-point competition personal best.

Competition continues with this afternoon’s eliminations at the Lausanne Challenge.