One month to Santiago 2023: Find out more about archer Brady Ellison, the last world record breaker at the Pan American Games
The Pan American Games 2023 kick off in one month and one participant will be eyeing the form that saw him claim a world record at the previous edition, recurve archer Brady Ellison. Find out more about the man cited as one of the best archers ever to draw back the bow.
Archery
"Finally got it guys," posted Brady Ellison on 7 August 2019 at the Pan American Games in Lima. Those following the American on Instagram knew exactly what the recurve archer was referring to at the competition in Peru.
"WORLD RECORD!!!!!"
Ellison, who'd won his first individual outdoor world title just months before had become the highest scoring recurve archer in history with 702 points, in a discipline in which archers shoot 72 arrows from a distance of 70m at a target with the bullseye worth 10 points.
The three-time Olympic medallist was only the second person ever to go over the magical 700 mark. Republic of Korea's Kim Woojin shot exactly 700 during the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 in the discipline named after its bow shape.
Ellison had now broken that record, scoring 702 out of a possible 720 points in the ranking round in South America.
"It means so much," said an emotional Ellison afterwards. "I mean I've been shooting so good this year and I've shot so many 700s in practice. We stepped onto that field today and there wasn't a touch of wind on it, and I was like, I know it, I got it."
Three years later, Ellison was back online again.
"Well, that just happened," he wrote on Instagram on 30 April 2022 after breaking his own world record in the double-70 event, consisting of two 70m rounds shot consecutively.
Scoring 1378 out of 1400, the Arizona native beat the record of 1367, which he also held.
"Of course it has to be ratified but that’s a new World Record!!! Beats the previous one by 11 points!!!!"
And now, with a month to go until Santiago 2023, which starts 20 October and also doubles up as a Paris 2024 Olympic qualifier, Ellison is again hoping to be tapping the exclamation point on his keyboard as he eyes more success at the Pan Am Games, in which he's a four-time champion.
Find out three additional interesting facts about the man cited as potentially the greatest of all time, below.
Brady Ellison of Team United States competes at Tokyo 2020
Brady Ellison appeared on science-related TV show, Mythbusters
If you're a TV show focused on disproving myths, there's only one person to ask to help out when it comes to an archery-focused challenge – Brady Elliison.
In 2010, the then world-ranked number one archer was asked to assist the show's hosts with resolving a myth that the ancient Greeks made a machine that fired arrows faster and better than human archers.
Ellison was able to hit all five targets 200 yards away in two minutes, using 11 arrows. Then, it was the machine’s turn. After jamming time and again, it downed all five targets in one minute 50 seconds, using 15 arrows.
Ellison’s rate of fire was 5.5 arrows/minute, while the machine fired eight arrows/minute.
The myth was therefore declared plausible, and Ellison got to be on the telly.
Homeopathic remedy works wonders for a surprised Brady Ellison
“It felt like bolts of lightning when I shot,” Ellison told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview ahead of Tokyo 2020.
The pain in his fingers began shortly after he won team silver and individual bronze at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and continued through 2017 and 2018. Doctors suggested he'd even have to give up his sport.
His wife and fellow archer, Toja Ellison, suggested an alternative option.
“Before I met Toja there’s absolutely no way in hell I would have considered seeing a bio-energetist,” said Ellison whose roots go deep in the wilds of America's West. “But he [the natural healer] just puts his hands on you and heals you with his body energy. And I haven’t had any pain since.”
Additional physical challenges include a serious thyroid condition and a bout with Perthes disease as a child that landed him in leg braces for more than a year.
So Ellison has had physical challenges on his road to GOAT-hood but Zach Garrett, Ellison's US archery teammate, said in a documentary made by World Archery in 2021: "I would say technically he has an advantage but truly, mentally is his biggest advantage."
Brady Ellison aiming for a fifth Games in ongoing Olympic quest
"I don't consider you can be the best ever if you don't win an Olympics," said Ellison in the documentary Believe about his lifelong quest.
"When you train for the Olympics, you don't live like a normal person. You live your life in four-year chunks, and everything is based on that fourth year. All your success, all your failure, all comes down to one moment. It's special."
So far, the now 34-year-old is a two-time team silver medallist, at London 2012 and Rio 2016, and secured his longed-for individual medal with an emotional bronze in Brazil.
"I was like finally man, you did it. You're an Olympic medallist."
He still craves gold, especially after Tokyo 2020 didn't go to plan, beaten by Turkey’s Mete Gazoz in the quarterfinals, but he's aware, and proud, of the impact he's already had.
"When someone comes up and asks for a picture and they're shaking because they are nervous or that excited, I never dreamed of that, and you know, it's humbling, it's cool.
"It's like, how can this country kid from a small freaking town make someone so excited that when they take a picture they're shaking? That doesn't happen. It's kind of like a fairytale still for me."
- For more information on the Pan Am Games 2023 see here.