The U.S. men’s archery team is coming home with a silver medal—more accurately, three medals. Brady Ellison, Zach Garrett, and Jake Kaminski won silver in the men’s team final on Saturday, duplicating their results in the 2012 London Olympics.
The men defeated China 6-0 in the semifinals but fell to South Korea in the finals, also a 6-0 match. The Koreans opened the event by shooting six straight bull’s-eyes, finishing with 15 “10s” out of 18 shots. The Americans hit three straight bull’s-eyes in the second set for a total of ten 10s.
The three were pleased with their performance, winning a silver medal for the second Games in a row for their joint event.
Coming off the emotional shoot on Saturday, the three moved into the individual archery event on Tuesday. Kaminski entered the first round, the Round of 64, to boos from the crowd—no slight to the American; he was simply facing local favorite Marcus D’Almeida of Brazil. Kaminski didn’t let it bother him, though; he defeated D’Almeida with a final score of 6-2. Meanwhile, Ellison defeated Libya’s Ali El Ghari 6-0, and Garrett beat Malaysia’s Kamaruddin Haziq 6-0.
The second round, the Round of 32, saw former teammates battling against each other for a place at the podium. Ellison eliminated Kaminski to advance, putting six arrows in the 10-ring for a final of 6-2. Garrett defeated Canada’s Crispin Duenas 7-3.
The next round, the Round of 16, will take place Friday morning. The two remaining Americans will face off at 9:31, with either Ellison or Garrett moving on to the quarterfinals . . . and hopefully on from there to the semifinals and final round. The final three rounds will all take place Friday, with medals won or lost by sundown.
Ellison is from Globe, Arizona; Garrett is from Wellington, Missouri; and Kaminski is from Gainesville, Florida.
While archery pre-dated firearms by several millennia, shooting was actually included in the modern Olympic Games before archery. The 1896 Games, the first in modern history, had five firearm events. Archery didn’t enter until 1900; was contested in 1904, 1908, and 1920; was absent from the Games for 52 years; returned in 1972; and has been a constant Olympic presence ever since. The team matches were added to the Olympics in 1988.