Andres Temiño Mediel shed tears of joy once again as he defeated Marcus D’Almeida in a shoot-off to become recurve men’s world champion at the Gwangju 2025 Hyundai World Archery Championships.
It looked as though the Spaniard might clinch the match 6-4, but his first arrow of the fifth set was downgraded from a possible 10 to a nine by target judge Qu Yinan. That left the set tied at 28 apiece and the match locked at 5-5.
The 21-year-old still had one more 10 in reserve. He delivered it in the shoot-off, his arrow landing just to the right of the spider, while D’Almeida faltered with a nine. The bright afternoon sun at 5.18 Democracy Square had caused problems for many archers, but Temiño Mediel kept his composure when it mattered most.
“Even more excited than yesterday, very happy with what we’ve achieved and now it’s time to enjoy it,” he said of his second gold medal in Gwangju, following yesterday’s mixed team historic success with Elia Canales.
“I didn’t do anything different than usual. I continued doing what I’ve been doing throughout the competition, especially being present at every moment so as not to get caught up in what could happen, and it happened.”
It has been almost the perfect week for the second seed. In only his second Hyundai World Archery Championships, Temiño Mediel set a personal best of 692 in qualification and delivered unprecedented milestones for Spanish archery.
Before yesterday, Spain had no gold medals at a World Archery Championships. Before today? Not a single individual world champion – quite astonishing for one of Europe’s biggest archery nations, which has hosted major events like the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games, the 2005 World Archery Championships, the 2019 World Archery Youth Championships and, most recently, the fourth stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup, all three in Madrid.
The 48 million people of Spain have Shanghai 2024 gold medallist Temiño Mediel to thank for changing that narrative, pulling through tough matches in the searing afternoon heat at 5.18 Democracy Square.
