CIRENCESTER'S Ella Gibson won her first gold medal of the Hyundai Archery World Cup 2023 season in Paris on the weekend, writes Chris Roberts MBE. 

The 23-year-old shot a perfect 150 to defeat Jyothi Surekha Vennam in the last four before holding her nerve amid a tense ending to the compound women’s individual gold medal match against Denmark’s Tanja Gellenthien.

Tied at 145-145 after five ends, Ella’s sudden death arrow landed closest to the X as she booked her place at the September World Cup Final in Hermosillo, Mexico and continued her fine record in Paris, where she also won last year’s World Cup stage.

“It feels amazing to finally get a gold this year,” said Ella.

Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard: Cirencester's Ella Gibson wins another gold medal

"“When it’s such high pressure, you can get really nervous and the adrenaline gets to you and you can be scared.

"But you just have to remind yourself that actually this is the aim.

"This is the thing that you train for every single day, to be on a world stage.

"You’ve just got to try and remember that and relax and enjoy it.”

Ella’s success in Paris comes hot on the heels of her setting two world records during the British Target Championship at Lilleshall at the beginning of August to move ahead of the legendary Sara Lopez in the number of all-time top scores shot by compound women outdoors.

Then, over the weekend of August 12 and 13, Ella succeeded in setting another new compound women’s world record at the 2023 European Games in Krakow, Poland.

She broke the 72-arrow 50-metre qualifying world record by two points after scoring 715 out of a possible 720.

Ella’s historic record score in Krakow now takes away the record from reigning World Archery Champion, Sara Lopez, who has held it since April 2015 and who set the previous record of 713 in August of that year.

In total, British world number one, Ella now holds five of the eight world records in the compound women’s archery sport, with Lopez holding the remaining three.