The USA’s under-21 recurve men beat Korea on team finals day at Winnipeg 2025, in the most dramatic upset of a damp and windy meet which saw most of the medals heading back to Asia.
Christian Stoddard, Jack Krengel and Joshua Baek beat Korea 5-1 in a difficult match held in torrential rain and wind. “Feeling ecstatic,” said Stoddard. “Just the culmination of all of our hard work feels so good.”
“It was like straight out of a movie,” said Baek of the conditions. “I don’t think I’ve never shot a match like that in my life, but it was so much fun. They’re facing the same conditions as us. We just had to shoot our best, and we kept a really good attitude.”
It was over in three sets. Both teams opened with ends of 51, with loose arrows from both sides. The USA edged out the second set 54-53 as the Korean trio managed to find the ten ring just once amid the rain and gloom.
In the final set, there were more wayward arrows from both sides but the Korean threat evaporated, with their best effort a single nine from the Korean anchor Min Seongwook.
“I mean of course [beating Korea] does mean a lot, but I think Korea is just another country and we treated it like all our other matches.” added Stoddard.
The USA’s youth men, now coached by former Spanish national team coach Elias Cuesta, were definitely the biggest surprise in a recurve day otherwise dominated by Korea, who won all three of their other finals: under-21 women, and under-18 men and women, all at the expense of Chinese Taipei.
Taipei were unlucky again in the compound under-21 women’s final, won by the USA 227-224. India’s under-18 men bested the USA however, winning 224-222, and their under-21 men just edged Germany in a shoot-off.
One other nation managed to get the better of Korea: the under-18 compound women of Türkiye, who beat the ladies in white in a shoot-off after tying 227-227 in the rain.
The competition continues with mixed team and individual compound finals on Saturday. You can watch finals coverage from Winnipeg on 23-24 August with a subscription to archery+.
