China’s steeliness was a stark contrast to the palpable frustration among the more experienced USA team, who had hoped to secure their first women’s team World Cup gold since 2015.
After shooting a seven in the third set, Mucino looked at her bow in bemusement, gazing in astonishment, as her team’s chances of victory slipped away.
“We don’t want our bad shots, but they’re necessary at some point to learn from,” said the Medellin 2023 bronze medallist. “It wasn’t a good shot, it could have been better. It was at the end of an end, so it didn’t matter realistically, even if it wasn’t a seven.”
“The bow was fine, it was just me.”
Meanwhile, Mexico triumphed once again in the recurve mixed team event, defeating Spain 5-3, the final end being a 39, one off a rare perfect score of 40.
The duo of Matias Grande and Alejandra Valencia, both top-10 world-ranked athletes, are one of archery’s most formidable pairs on the world stage. But with only World Cups and continental championships in their medal cabinet thus far, the 2024 Pan American Champion Grande knows there’s still work to be done, to add a World Archery Championships medal in Gwangju later this year.
“I think we need to keep working hard and not show too much confidence,” said the 20-year-old. “We know all the teams work very hard, so we need to keep pushing hard and keep enjoying as we do.”
Competition in Central Florida concludes with recurve individual finals in the afternoon.
