Turkish recurve teams shine in Puebla to book themselves in men, women finals
Türkiye made themselves feel known as the week's team titans as both their recurve men and women squads booked themselves to Sunday's stage finals at Puebla 2026 - the first stage of the 2026 World Cup.
Their journeys to the gold medal match were different but equally impressive on Thursday morning as they replicated the usual Korean cross-gender trio dominance at Parque del Arte.
Mete Gazoz, Berkim Tumer and Berkay Akkoyun dispatched the men's number one seeds from Wednesday's qualifications, China, in the semifinals 5-1, whilst Elif Gokkir, Gizem Ozkan and Dunya Yenihayat battled through consecutive shoot-offs against India and then Mexico to reach the stage.
One team performance made up of scintillating shooting, the other of mental grit and fortitude, Türkiye had it all.
“I'm so happy and I'm so proud of my team, also for our women team who is shooting for gold,” said an ecstatic Gazoz after he and his teammates hugged every single one of the proud, watching Turkish contingent. “It's a wonderful feeling for me. The team is always more important than individual matches. Of course, individual and mixed team events are so important.”
“But for me and my team, our team matches and team medals are always better than individual matches because my teammates, they grew up with me.”
“I know each one since they were seven years old, and I try to teach them something about the competition, the World Cup, and I try to show them it’s not a big deal.”
Ever since he blew the recurve men category as an individual post Tokyo - becoming the first simultaneous Olympic, World and European champion - Gazoz revealed in his Behind the Bow episode on archery+ that lifting his teammates to a major top podium is his next priority.
It has been well-documented that when Yusuf Goktug Ergin arrived to the Turkish scene in 2016 as head coach and director, he rebuilt the national squad almost entirely from youth, foreseeing international experience for some archers even not in their teens at the time to be at world class level in their early twenties rather than mid-late.
Gazoz was obviously a special talent from early on and was carefully curated to supersede expectations, but now the 10 years-in-advance planning by Goktug is seeing fruition across the whole board, with their compound men team also making it to their respective gold medal match.
The long game is paying off and their camaraderie, which has developed whilst they have all grown together as human beings as well as archers under Türkiye's renowned physically gruelling camps, is clear to see when they celebrate each and every arrow together.
“It's so hard because we train so much, we train so hard, and I am the best archer in the world on the practice field,” added 26 year old Gazoz, who averaged an arrow of 9.5 against China. “If you can beat me, you can beat everybody in the field and now I see the Turkish team, women and men, we are a top three team in the world, and I'm so happy.”
Gazoz, Tumer and Akkoyun will be eager to make the blood, sweat and tears worth it when they shoot against USA's Brady Ellison, Christian Stoddard and Jack Williams this weekend.
If the comparison of the two nations' semifinals is anything to go by, then the Turkish trio will feel they have the upper hand, with a self-admitted “tired” Williams who struggled as the arrows piled up, the American saying that his teammates “carried” him in their 5-3 victory over Paris 2024 runners-up France.
“My go-to problem is I get up in my upper trap, so that shifts the whole scapula up, which then kind of disconnects the deltoid, that connection into the lower scapula,” explained the 2021 World Cup Final champion. “That position just shoots really bad so it's a really snowball thing, where as soon as I get out of that upper trap, shoulder position, there's no injury, no pain, which I'm thankful for.”
Competition is currently ongoing in Puebla with compound and recurve mixed team eliminations.
Finals: Puebla 2026
- Recurve men team: Türkiye versus USA
- Compound women team: Türkiye versus China
*China won the recurve men team bronze, Mexico won the recurve women team bronze.
Watch coverage from Puebla live with a subscription to archery+.
