Two teenagers win the professional archery Super Bowl

Thousands of the world’s best archers gathered this weekend for the Vegas Shoot 2022, the largest indoor archery tournament in the world. When the dust settled, a pair of teenage girls won the Compound Open and Women’s Championship divisions, beating fields full of veteran professional shooters.

Bodie Turner, 15, of Washington, and Liko Arreola, 14, of Hawaii, both had to win agonizing play-offs in front of thousands of spectators on February 6 at the South Point Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas to win the Open Championship Compound and Women’s Compound Championship divisions respectively.

Turner’s win capped one of the best two archery tournament weeks in history. Keep in mind: he’s not competing in a junior division, Turner is shooting against the best adult professional archers in the world. On January 28, he became the third archer to shoot a perfect qualifying score of 660 at the Lancaster Archery Classic in Manheim, Pennsylvania. This means that he shot all 60 arrows in a ring of 11 the size of a penny from 18 yards (20 yards).

On February 4, 5 and 6, Turner shot perfect scores of 300 each day – 30 arrows in a 10-point ring the size of a pre-2000 silver dollar – to qualify for the shootout of Vegas. Twenty-two others among the 211 participants also qualified.

On the night of Feb. 6, Turner topped the Finals field, which included several former Vegas champions — two-time defending champion Kyle Douglas, Sergio Pagni, Mike Schloesser, Jesse Broadwater and Christopher Perkins.

In the Vegas Shoot Championship Division shootout, all tied archers shoot a three-arrow end on 40cm faces that have the large 10-point ring, plus the inner X-ring at the waist of a penny. On this first end, the large 10-point ring is worth 10 points. In the Open Championship Compound shoot-off, all 23 archers shot perfect scores in that first end.

For the second end and all subsequent ends, only the inner X ring counts for 10 points. Once the shootout switched to this scoring format, the archers began to give up, while Turner stayed clean.

After six ends, the field was reduced to Turner, Dan McCarthy, Sergio Pagni and Nick Kappers. McCarthy shot a 9 on his first arrow and Pagni released an arrow by mistake for a 0. Kappers and Turner remained perfect.

With only Kappers and Turner in the eighth end, the two scored 10s with their first two arrows. Kappers then slipped his third arrow just outside the 10 for a 9, leaving Turner with the last shot. After an audible gasp from the crowd after Kappers’ 9, Turner aimed carefully and fired his last arrow which hit the left side of the 10 ring to claim the championship.

For the win, Turner took home the tournament’s top prize of $50,000. To that he added thousands more contingencies from the manufacturers of the equipment he pulled, including $15,000 from Hoyt, $5,000 from TRU Ball/Axcel and $1,500 from Easton.

“The qualifying rounds were tough,” Turner said after his win, referring to the three 300s he shot.

“The shootout was good…I came out here, fired some good shots and ended up being last. So it worked. »

Like Turner, Arreola also clocked a perfect qualifying lap of 900 to make it to the play-off. But in the compound women’s championship, only three archers out of 79 competitors made it to the final – Arreola, Tanja Gellenthien of Denmark and Paige Pearce of California. Gellenthien and Pearce are both former Vegas champions and have a litany of victories in international competition.

Although still under pressure, the women’s jump-off was quick. All three archers shot perfect scores in the first end. But in the second, only Arreola kept the three arrows in the middle.

Incredibly, winning the 2022 Vegas Shoot gave Arreola back-to-back championships. She won her first last year aged just 13.

In winning this title, Arreola was the only archer in her division to shoot a 900, so she won it outright. This year was his first participation in a jump-off.

“A little more shocking,” Arreola said of his 2022 win. “And a little more nervous for me because I’ve never done that play-off before.”

Along with the title, Arreola pocketed $10,000 from the Vegas Shoot, along with thousands more in manufacturers’ contingencies, including $5,000 from Hoyt.