Pennsylvania’s Kaufhold dispatched Colombian veteran and fellow Olympian Ana Maria Rendon 6-4 wrapping up the gold, her first medal of the year and the 2025 indoor season.
Kaufhold shot two perfect scores in the match, avergaing 9.73 an arrow against Rendon with one of them coming in the final end to book her tenth indoor world series medal.
This victory however meant more to the 20 year old than most after the reigning Pan American champion admitted having anxiety earlier in qualifications.
“I felt a lot more comfortable today in matches compared to qualifications,” said a relieved Kaufhold who also revealed that she has started working with multiple sports psychologists since Nimes, her last competition. “In qualification I got on a really good streak but then I got nervous at the end because I knew I was coming up on the world record.
“My shot and my mental broke down a little bit whereas later I felt a lot more consistent. I had some nines but every nine I shot I was like ‘Okay, that felt like a nine’, so I was able to assess what I did wrong and then make a good shot.”
There was more than enough assurance on display by Mike Schloesser, at least on the face of it, as he continued his near unstoppable form in arenas, claiming his fourth indoor world series gold of the season in the compound men discipline.
With Chicago being the fourth of six stops in archery’s premier international indoor circuit, Schloesser now travels to Las Vegas having won over 50 per cent of available golds.
‘Mister Perfect’ put the cherry on top of his own cake in the medal match against Tlaxcala 2024 Hyundai World Cup Final winner James Lutz, dropping a familiar 600 but the length of the competition he said did take a toll.
“It was a long day, a lot of matches, a lot of arrows. In the middle I had a little bit of a dump. I started thinking a lot and not shooting my shots like I wanted to but in the end I was lucky to have a little bit of a gap between the semi finals and the gold final.”
“I started focusing on the execution of my shots and that helped me a lot.”
Las Vegas is the final stop of the indoor world series as the world’s best archers will travel once again to the USA, first competing in The Vegas Shoot (5-9 March), shortly followed by the Indoor World Series Finals (8 March), that is also taking place in Las Vegas.
