Reigning champions return to try and regain Pan Ams magic in Tlaxcala
At the last 2024 Pan American Championships in Medellin, the event crowned four new champions; it is a competition that has a habit of rewarding the persistent. All four individual winners in recurve and compound are back to defend their titles.
As they prepare to compete once again at one of the most prestigious archery tournaments in the Americas, we take a closer look at these reigning champions – the oldest just 26 – and track their competitive journeys over the past two years.
It's quite the story.
Recurve men – Matias Grande (Mexico)
Grande has spent two solidifying his position as one of the top recurve archers in the world and earning the hype that engulfed him shortly before Paris 2024, after the then 20-year-old from Guanajuato went from underdog host-nation invite at the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final, to runner-up at the Pan American Games to reigning Pan American champion.
He made it to the last 16 in the Olympic individual event, reached the quarterfinals in the mixed team event alongside Alejandra Valencia. Later in 2024 Grande won a well-earned nomination for the 2024 World Archery Breakthrough Archer of the Year award.
Grande carried this strong momentum into 2025, taking his first Hyundai Archery World Cup gold medal at Madrid 2025 by defeating France's Baptiste Addis, as well as a silver in Shanghai. He kept up the momentum by winning his first Indoor World Series title at the Merida IWS 500 in early 2026 and reaching the final four at the Puebla 2026 Hyundai Archery World Cup stage 1, pushing him to number three in the world.
It's hard to see how he isn't a favourite for a repeat; and on home turf. It's not his to lose – but he's got to be the favourite.
Recurve women – Casey Kaufhold (USA)
Kaufhold has continued to excel since her Pan Am win in 2024 where she took both individual gold and team gold along with her teammates headed for Paris, Jennifer Mucino and Catalina Gnoriega. At the Olympics she captured a bronze medal in the mixed team event alongside Brady Ellison, which she discussed in depth with World Archery earlier this year.
Her 2025 Hyundai Archery World Cup season saw multiple final-four appearances, along with her anchoring the USA’s women trio historic World Cup gold medal in Antalya – beating the Korean team for the first time in 20 attempts – followed by another impressive indoor season that saw her win at the The Vegas Shoot outright.
Now ranked number three in the world – the top ranked woman here – it seems remarkable that she is still only 22, and already showing an increasing maturity in performance on her relentless path to LA28.
The favourite? Almost certainly. It seems likely that she'll make the semis at the very least, and a title defence would be an extraordinary achievement – but perhaps not unexpected.
Compound men – Sebastian Garcia Flores (Mexico)
Following his individual victory at the 2024 Pan Ams, Garcia made a massive international breakthrough during the 2025 Hyundai Archery World Cup season. At stage one in Central Florida, he seeded top in qualification above the world's elite and went on to claim his maiden individual World Cup medal by taking silver.
He wasn't done there, taking a first individual World Cup gold at the second stage tournament in Shanghai, winning a high-pressure shoot-off in the final, followed by a silver medal at the Chengdu 2025 World Games and a bronze medal at the Gwangju 2025 Hyundai World Archery Championships.
But in 2026, in the Mexico selection trials, he did something that was – unofficially – off the chart, shooting 719 out of a possible 720 points in the 50 metre outdoor ranking round to clip the existing world record mark by a single point. Though the score could not be officially ratified as a world record – because the domestic trial was not registered on the international calendar – it cemented his reputation.
Garcia now sits at number four in the world, just behind the starry trio of Nicolas Girard, Mike Schloesser and Mathias Fullerton – and is romantically involved with the compound women’s world number two, Great Britain’s Ella Gibson. It seems unwise to bet against the man from Coahuila taking another Americas win.
Compound women – Alexis Ruiz (USA)
At the 2024 champs, the Arizona native completed a spectacular triple gold haul, going completely undefeated across the tournament with three separate continental titles: gold in women’s individual compound, compound women's team, and compound mixed team – a performance that also secured the USA its first official qualification slot for the 2025 World Games.
She climbed back onto the world podium with team silver at the 2025 World Archery Championships in Gwangju, followed by a trip to the Nanjing World Cup Final. In 2026 she took her first top seeding at stage 2 in Shanghai, shot a perfect 150-point match in the quarterfinals, and ultimately walked away with a three-medal haul: individual bronze, women's team silver, and a mixed team gold medal alongside Jimmy Lutz.
Ruiz has been working hard on the circuit ever since her debut in 2017, when she won individual gold at the Rosario 2017 World Archery Youth Championships, but finally seems to be knocking on the door right at the very top.
Unlike our other defending champs, she arrives in Tlaxcala not as the top-ranked archer – Andrea Becerra and Alejandra Usquiano are ahead of her – but perhaps her moment has come once again.
