Lopez wins 12th career stage as Sullivan tops maiden podium

Sara Lopez and Sawyer Sullivan gained the compound occasions on the second stage of the 2024 Hyundai Archery World Cup, reserving their slots to the season-ending finale in addition to topping the rostrum at Jinho Worldwide Archery Area in Yecheon, Korea.

It’s the first stage win of Sullivan’s profession and the twelfth of Lopez’s – however the first since 2021.

“I’m so comfortable. And if I’m comfortable, then I could be the previous Sara,” she stated. “Coming right here, I had strain from the federation, from the nation, however my mother and father, my fiancé, my mates, they advised me, ‘do it for you since you love this’.”

Lopez cried because the Colombian anthem was performed. 

“I misplaced all my happiness a few years in the past. I used to be doing this as a result of different folks wanted me to,” stated the eight-time circuit champion.

“Not anymore. Now I’m again, I really feel just like the previous me.”

She carried out just like the archer who went unbeaten internationally for almost two years within the mid-2010s, the archer who topped the world rating checklist for a file time, and the archer who singlehandedly modified the panorama of compound girls’s archery, elevating the bar time and time once more.

Lopez upset prime seed Han Seungyeon with a 149 of their semifinal and appeared snug and assured as she beat Andrea Becerra, 146-144, within the last.

The win makes her the primary reigning Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion to guide her ticket to this 12 months’s last, scheduled for Tlaxcala in October.