Horackova furthers legacy and wins Czechia's first World Cup Final gold at Saltillo 2026
Marie Horackova flew the Czech flag proudly in Saltillo as she made more history for her country by winning the 2026 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in recurve women.
Horackova missed Thursday's quarterfinal draw due to travel issues but didn't miss the mark at Plaza de Armas, becoming somewhat of a party pooper for the fantastic Mexican support - which has been electric all weekend - dismissing both Coahuila's Ana Paula Vazquez Flores 6-4 in the quarterfinals and Paris 2024 bronze medallist Alejandra Valencia Trujillo 6-0 in the semifinals.
She would have to wait for an hour though before the match against Valencia Trujillo, due to thunder and lightning storms, but her second delay of the week did not bother her quest as she fended off Germany's Katharina Bauer 6-2 in the gold match to become Czechia's maiden World Cup champion in any discipline.
“Well, you have to adapt as fast as you can and maybe the thunder break got the nerves off, so maybe I felt more comfortable after,” chuckled the two-time Olympian who went straight to embrace boyfriend and fellow Czech archer Adam Li in the coaching box after the match. “Shooting against someone who's on home soil? Wow... It's challenging but I love the crowd.”
“I always love the energy the people gave us, even if it's for the opponent mostly. But I still really like the atmosphere they made here.”
Since announcing herself emphatically as a serious player in recurve women by winning the Berlin 2023 World Championships, Horackova has gone on to claim several Indoor World Series medals, including bronze in the 2024 Indoor Archery World Series Finals, and also got bronze in the Walbrzych-Ksiaz 2025 European Field Championships. But although high up in the rankings for three years now, amazingly she still hadn't even reached a World Cup Final.
Following her successful gold medal campaign in Madrid [stage four] - the last chance for archers to book guaranteed tickets to Saltillo - Horackova revealed how she had deliberately not competed in the world-renowned Vegas Shoot in the indoor season to prioritise a busy campaign at 70 metres which also had the European Outdoor Championships 2026 in the middle of it.
And boy has it paid off.
The 28-year-old archer's medal haul for 2026 includes silver at the European Grand Prix Spring Arrows, gold at the 2026 Veronica's Cup, gold in Madrid and now gold in Mexico.
She made herself Czechia's first recurve woman world champion in Berlin and now Saltillo joins the German capital as a dear city to her heart but also Czech archery's.
Czechia is one of the smaller nations in Europe with only a 10 million population and sport stars come few and far between, particularly at least on an international level.
Performances like today therefore accelerate Horackova's legacy and stardom in the country but also archery as a sport on the whole.
“It's true that in Czechia, archery is also small and promoting it here and by my achievements, it means a lot to me and I'm like quite an icon of our sport in my country.”
“I hope that more will come but it's quite complicated because we're not a big country and there are many other sports, mostly football, ice hockey, basketball, who are more supported, so then you have to be really good in a sport which is not so popular,” she added. “Then you can get also big support, but you really have to be one of the best.”
It's one thing to be a world-class athlete, it's another to be one of the very few to carry an entire nation's hopes.
Horackova's class brushes it off as if it's nothing though, which makes her so special.
Sunday’s matches brought the 2026 Hyundai Archery World Cup season to a close, with the 2027 edition set to open in April in Shanghai, China.
Final ranking: Recurve women
Marie Horackova, Czechia
Katharina Bauer, Germany
Elif Gokkir, Türkiye
Alejandra Valencia Trujillo, Mexico
Elia Canales, Spain
Zhong Qixuan, China- Ana Paula Vazquez Flores, Mexico
Roberta Di Francesco, Italy
