India’s Kushal Dalal took his first major compound indoor title at the 2025 GT Open in Strassen, Luxembourg, after getting through a double shootoff against the experienced Stephan Hansen, formerly of Denmark, now shooting for the USA.
Both shot 148 with Dalal dropping points in the 4th and 5th end. The first shoot-off saw both athletes shoot a half-in ten which was too close to call. In the second shootoff, Dalal held his nerve for a good ten, while Hansen, whose form seemed to have wandered, delivered a bad one.
The 20-year-old Dalal has had a breakthrough year outdoors taking gold at two Asia Cup legs.
Mathias Fullerton edged out Nicolas Girard in a heavyweight bronze match shootoff after both shot 150s to round out the podium. Perhaps the biggest surprise in men’s compound was not seeing Mike Schloesser in the latter stages of the competition after he was eliminated in his first round match by Aljaz Matija Brenk of Slovenia.
The compound women‘s competition was a big name battle between Elisa Roner and Ella Gibson, where Roner shot clean for three ends but dropped three points in the last two to hand Gibson the win.
In the recurve competition, Israel’s Roy Dror took a second major indoor title of 2025, beating Willem Bakker of the Netherlands in a shoot-off.
The top seed and 2024 Olympian eventually prevailed in a huge battle where both archers shot clean for three ends straight before Dror dropped a point with his first arrow of the 4th. But he recovered to stay clean in for his last five, while Bakker fell away in the 5th. Dror just edged a shoot-off where both delivered tens.
It was Dror’s second big indoor win after taking gold at the Nimes Archery Tournament in 2024, and is a step up on his silver medal in Lausanne two weeks ago.
In the recurve women’s gold medal match, Elia Canales pushed out an off-par Lim Duna 6-2, after recovering from a poor second arrow in the first end. The Spaniard shot clean from there to wrap it up in four sets.
The Indoor World Series now moves on to Taipei and the fourth Taipei Archery Open at the start of December.
You can rewatch the finals of the GT Open with a subscription to archery+.
