Brady Ellison and Jacob Wukie Fail In Medal Quest as Team USA Archery Misses Medal Marks

Brady Ellison may be the world’s best, but he’s leaving without an Olympic gold -again.

TOKYO, Japan – Friday was a difficult Olympic Games for Team USA Archery; surrounded by high expectations in the midst of great challenges from the global pandemic that shifted the Tokyo Games by an entire year. The Games allows no room for error when so few arrows determine your fate, and in a stadium with a very tricky wind and incredibly high pressure, the most important takeaway throughout the Games was to not second-guess yourself.

For the men’s finals day today, hype surrounded World No. 1 and World Champion Brady Ellison’s quest for the elusive Olympic champion title that has evaded him through four Games. The first round matched Ellison with teammate and friend Jacob Wukie. While that may have caused mixed emotions for some; wanting the best for a good friend but also wanting to win, Ellison and Wukie entered the venue sans coaches and seemed to joke around between ends, enjoying shooting together.

It was a great match. Ellison took the first set and then the two split the next three, scoring 29, 29 and 28 each. Ellison closed with a perfect 30 to advance and was shooting the way he needed to continue on to the podium as Wukie finished 9th.

In the quarterfinals, Ellison met Mete Gazoz of Turkey. Gazoz took the first set 27-26. Then they matched with 28s, Ellison responded with another 28 to Gazoz’s 27 and the two drew level. Brady opened with a right 8, and followed with another 8 to the left, a costly score when it mattered most. Gazoz just outscored him 27-26 and then 30-29 to finish 7-3 in 7th place.

“I shot a good match,” commented Ellison. “I just made one bad shot, that was the right 8 and then I made a mistake of thinking that it should have flight drifted and it was just a bad shot and then I aimed my next one in the middle and shot a left 8. That was the only mistake or kind of bad one in the match and if I would have just aimed in that same place, not thinking the wind was different because of the one shot that I held long, I would have shot 10, 10, 8 and it would have been a different match. I’m not really upset, I shot well overall.”

 

TOKYO, Japan – Mackenzie Brown was the sole U.S. woman to represent Team USA at the Rio 2016 Olympics and she spent every day of the past 5 years working to get back to the Games for another shot; never taking her eye off the gold. 

 

Brown was so solid in qualification, ranking 5th in an incredibly tight field and leading the women’s team to a 3rd place seed and the mixed team to 2nd. In the finals arena for team events, Brown was strong and consistent, but faced heartbreaking losses alongside her teammates. She remained positive, knowing she was doing what she needed to do out there and confident she could keep it up on her own for individual match play. 

 

She dropped just the first set in the preliminary match day and never looked back, cleaning 6-2 and 6-0 wins to make it to the top 16. Fast forward to finals day today and she continued to utterly dominate, splitting two sets with Chinese Taipei’s Chia-En Lin but winning the first and last with solid 28s for a 6-2 win. 

 

The quarterfinals opened with a loud crack of thunder through the stadium, and Brown threw the lightning. It was a glorious battle against Mexico’s Olympic Champion Alejandra Valencia, ending in a shoot off. Both archers scored 10s, but Brown’s was closer to the center and she took the win.  

 

Brown’s semifinal with Korea’s An San could easily have been the gold medal match, and will go down in history as one of the best shot, most exciting matches in Olympic women’s archery of all time. Brown took the first set by a point with a 29, San responded with two perfect 30s while Brown posted 28s. Then Brown responded with a 30 of her own to San’s 27. At the final arrow, Brown needed a 10 to win, but she loosed a 9 that was out by just one millimeter. Brown drilled a good 9, but San took the shoot off win with an X before going on to win gold. Brown absolutely left nothing on the table; it was one of those matches where she did not lose, she simply got beat.

 

Mackenzie Brown was good throughout the competition, but not quite good enough to medal.

Brown returned to the stage for the bronze final against Italy’s 23rd ranked Lucillia Boari. Boari came to play, and after splitting the first set at 28 each, ran away with the match 29-28, 28-25, and 27-26 for a 7-1 decision.

 

“I’m very proud of what I did today,” commented Brown. “My quarterfinal match was good. I stayed in it the whole time and same with my semifinal match. I was within a hairdo’s width away from winning. I never lost focus on any sets and don’t think I gave up at any point. I made good shots. I don’t know if I read the wind wrong or what; I honestly think I made the best decisions I could and stayed focused on the same things I’d been focused on all day.”