PARIS — This isn’t a game of inches. In archery, a gold medal can get decided by millimeters.
Five of them, actually.
That distance – five millimeters – was all that separated the first gold medal for Brady Ellison in his fifth Olympics for the United States from a silver medal.
Sadly for Ellison, his arrow was the one farthest from the center of the target.
South Korean star and Ellison’s long-time rival Kim Woo-Jin made it three gold medals in these Paris Games by narrowly winning a one-arrow shootoff to edge Ellison 6-5 on Sunday in one of the most dramatic gold-medal finishes in these Olympics.
2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.
Each of the two archers shot a perfect score of 30 in the match’s final set to force the one-arrow shootoff. Ellison went second, and his arrow was only slightly outside of his opponent’s arrow, which had landed on the line to score a 10.
‘This is the match I’ve been dreaming of since we first shot against each other in 2009 or 2010. It’s the match I’ve always wanted,’ Ellison said after the match. ‘I think world archery and the fans across the world have always wanted it, and the way we finished that match – to go four 10s in a row, both of us – I’m not upset that he barely beat me. … We shot like champions, and that’s what it’s all about.’
Ellison, a 35-year-old from Arizona who’s a world-record holder and considered one of the sport’s all-time best, won three consecutive matches Sunday to reach the gold medal final. He now has five career Olympic medals in five Olympics: Three silvers and two bronze, one of which came earlier in these Games in mixed doubles with American Casey Kaufhold.