Maël Lamouret’s consistency earns him historic Youth Olympic gold
Maël Lamouret put on a strong showing throughout the day to win the recurve under-18 men’s gold medal at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games.
Consistency is king in archery, and the 17-year-old athlete had plenty of it in Senegal throughout the elimination rounds, never dropping below 28 points in any of his five matches.
He defeated Chen Pin-An 6-4 in the final at the Abdoulaye Wade Stadium – and certainly had more vocal support than his Chinese Taipei counterpart, who had just come through another tight, high-quality semifinal encounter against Korea’s Lee Jih, winning 6-4.
The victory made Lamouret the first French individual Youth Olympic archery champion, adding to the country’s previous success in the mixed team event, where recurve women’s archer Kyla Touraine-heliass won gold at Buenos Aires 2018.
“It’s good for the nation,” Lamouret replied when asked how he felt about the achievement. “I didn’t realise it at the time, but yes, it’s really good.”
In the final end, needing just one set point to win, there was a brief moment of anxiety for the Normandy archer when he shot his first eight of the match with his opening arrow. However, he followed it up with an X and a 10 to leave no doubt – the X-ring being the central zone within the 10-ring.
“I took my decisions before I shot my arrows, but during the action to shoot, I let my body doing his job. On my last end, my eight on top, I released my arrows a little higher but on the last one, I saw her going into the 10-ring.”
“I look at my coach and say to myself ‘okay it’s good!’
Only Chen will know whether the back-and-forth nature of the contest had drained just a little too much from him before facing Lamouret. He failed to score a single perfect 30 in the gold medal match, while Lamouret managed two, along with nine 10s.
While the level in Dakar in both the men’s and women’s categories has been impressively high, Lamouret’s consistency in the inner two golden rings made it that little bit harder for his opponents.
Chinese Taipei’s Chen found that out the hard way.
Sets of 29, 28, 29, 28 and 28 still represent a fine individual display, and overall he only landed one fewer 10 than this year’s Rome 2026 European youth champion. But in elite sport, fine margins are everything.
Even in his earlier match against eventual bronze medallist Lee Jiho, the number one seed did not look completely at ease, with his release often visibly giving him trouble, despite still getting most of his arrows into the nine or 10-rings.
Lamouret was the opposite. As his 1.90-metre frame stood firmly balanced on the shooting line, his lack of emotion, compared to Singapore 2025 Asia Cup bronze medallist Chen, was almost as daunting as his physical presence.
“Yes, I feel ready,” he responded when asked whether he was ready to step up to senior level after Dakar. “Now it’s starting [to click] so I feel ready and hope I will be able to make more [squads].”
Thomas Chirault, Jean-Charles Valladont and Baptiste Addis certainly look like the settled trio for LA28, as they were for Paris 2024. However, should anything happen to them during the next Olympic cycles, whether through a drop in form or injury, Lamouret looks confident that he could step in without any stress, despite not yet having competed at that level internationally.
He already looks physically and mentally ready for the 70-metre scene.
Tomorrow, it is the turn of the recurve women in the finals before the mixed team event brings archery in Dakar to a close on Tuesday.
You can watch it live and for free here.
Podium: Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games
Full results on the event page.
Recurve men
- Maël Lamouret, France
- Chen Pin-An, Chinese Taipei
- Lee Jiho, Korea
