Brady Ellison played his top seed in the recurve men’s discipline down to improved physical condition at Madrid 2025, the fourth Hyundai Archery World Cup.
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games silver medallist shot 688 [16 Xs] on Wednesday evening to claim his first World Cup pole position since Shanghai 2023, beating the 99 other recurve men archers at Vallehermoso Stadium.
Having not internationally medalled yet as an individual outdoors, Ellison revealed one of his main struggles at 70 metres has been down to the torn labrum, acromioclavicular and sternoclavicular joints he suffered at the Pan-American Games 2023.
“We’ve got the injury healed up,” said the world number one. “My brain still wants to fight it and we tried to relink my brain a couple of days ago. It seemed to really help today and gave me a bunch of control back so I’m pretty excited right now.”
“We’ve done a lot of rehab, worked a lot, had the right diet and got everything healed up, now I’ve just got to get my brain to know that it’s all good, reprogramme some things that the body was doing to protect that shoulder.”
“I’m trying to get it to let go of protection and start doing what it wants to do and I think we’re on a good track right now.”
As someone who pulls sideways, twisting his hips but keeping his shoulder in place as he pulls, recovering from a debilitating an injury like that would not have been easy for Ellison, even as someone of his calibre.
But the American is recognised as one of the sports greats not just for his medal cabinet – which includes individual golds in two Indoor World Series, seven World Cup Finals, and three World Field Championships to name a few – but a never-say-die attitude that has kept him at the top for so long.
