Gossip behind the Tent Line: Team USA ... Cheated?

4 July 2024 - Lausanne, Switzerland

Two investigations into unsportsmanlike behaviour were opened during recent international competitions held in late June in Antalya (Türkiye). One of those investigations, concerning the USA recurve men’s team, is now closed. World Archery and the team’s athletes and officials have agreed to the following.

The team’s athletes do not challenge their unsportsmanlike behaviour. There was no finding by World Archery that any rule was violated, including any rules on match fixing, nor was there any admission of guilt or liability related to violating such rules. The team is disqualified from the final results list of the third stage of the 2024 Hyundai Archery World Cup and will receive no world ranking points from the event. The team and team officials have received a warning.

The second investigation opened during events in Türkiye remains ongoing.

And with that simple press release from World Archery, an extremely large and hungry lion was thrown into a stadium full of fat, sleepy pigeons. What on earth is going on?

Background: Its taken a bit of investigation but the facts are slowly starting to become apparent. At Stage 3 of the 2024 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Antalya, Türkiye (18-23 June 2024) the USA men's recurve team failed to get the necessary ranking points to qualify for the Olympics by losing to Korea in the quarter finals. Three days earlier, on the same day as the ranking rounds, 20th June, an internal notice was released by World Archery with the title "Notice of investigations into unsportsmanlike behaviour in Antalya". No one initially realized these events were connected.

Setting the scene: Going into Antalya, Team USA needed to score a lot of ranking points to get a full men's team (3 archers) to the Olympics. Only their ace, Brady Ellison, was guaranteed a place. They needed a good performance and specifically needed to leapfrog China in the ranking table. During the ranking rounds the Americans were not on their game scoring 2004 points between them so tying with Brazil and Italy. Slots 8, 9 and 10 in the bracket were up for grabs and this was done with each archer shooting one arrow - country with the highest 3 arrow score gets 8th place and lowest gets 10th. Italy came out with 8th, USA with 9th and Brazil with 10th.

Deep Dive: Now it gets a little confused but this is the heart of what happened. The USA needed to be in the same side of the competition bracket as China to maximise the number of ranking points advantage they could gain if they beat them and so put their destiny in their own hands. Only the 10th slot would put them on the same side. It seems they deliberately (and fairly blatantly) shot poorly to rank out in 10th place BUT due to WA rules somehow giving the 10th place to Brazil, they were in reality shooting for 8th or 9th. Seemingly unaware of what they were shooting for, they gained the 9th slot with their poor shooting. Result, even with the deliberate poor shots, they were on the wrong side of the bracket and would only now meet China if both teams got to the semi finals and ended up in the same medal match.

Aftermath: Team USA did start off with a hot hand defeating both Luxembourg and Italy 6-0 but ran into a Korea not willing to put up with any crap. They subsequently lost 0-6 in the quarter finals. With China making it to the semi's on the other side of the bracket, this sank US hopes and therefore they will not have a men's team in Paris. Brady will be the only male representing USA in archery. After more than a week of deliberations, on the 4th July, as noted above .. Team USA's actions in trying to finesse their ranking position came home to roost. It got them suspended from Antayla but according to the press release, they didn't do anything wrong or violate any rules ... So what's the F.... lipping problem?

Analysis: Now we are very much into speculation but our source is knowledgeable and has contacts who were actually there, so here is his take. The above finessing of ranking spots has been done for literally as long as the bracket system has been in place with World Archery (WA). In fact, since before it was even called World Archery. It's said that at the time of the shoot off, WA officials were clutching their pearls at the horror of Team USA not trying to win the shoot off which seems odd given this is a known and well used tactic. The problem may have been a recent addition to the sponsors of World Archery ... Spor Toto. Spor Toto is the official sports board of Turkey. It was founded in 1949 and its brief is to carry out sports-based betting and games of chance. Now we aren't going to get into the can of worms that is athletes throwing games or shaving points - Note Team USA was exonerated of that - but this may still have been the problem. Team USA tried to manipulate their score (legally) for positional gain but to a body set up to oversee sports gambling .. this may have had the whiff of foul play. The Americans were trying to put their destiny into their own hands verses China but to the worthies of Spor Toto .. this would have looked down right dodgy. Score rigging for betting syndicates is not exactly rare in professional sports and archery, while pretty damn spotless on the international stage, can't afford any questions about integrity. Not if it wants to keep pulling in the sponsorship money.

Final Word: So what are the ramifications of this? The punishments meted out to the USA are practically pointless. In losing to the Koreans, US Olympic Men's team hopes were already dashed. Brady is still going to the Olympics as the only American man. This season, overshadowed by the Olympics, is virtually done with nothing really worth fighting over. The warnings to Team USA archers and officials are a bit of a blemish but not exactly career ending given this tactic was never a problem before. These slap on the wrist punishments are just an appeasement to Spor Toto demonstrating the sport's "integrity". They were also a warning to other nations not to pull this sort of thing again .. well, at least not so blatantly. And that's all the information we have on this fairly exciting disciplinary event ........ except for just one more thing:

The "second investigation opened during events in Türkiye" .. Rumour has it that its political, religious and a horrendous can of worms. Can't wait til this story comes out!

Note: much of the above has been put together from ranty Americans, competition results already modified for the disqualification of the USA, an a4 sheet of scribbled notes and an editor who likes gossip far too much. We may have got some of the details wrong, but we think we have the main points down pat. Apologies if there's any inaccuracies.

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Original notice from World Archery
USA disqualified from Stage 3 Antalya 
Stage 3 World Cup results
Ianseo Scoring with detailed stats, ranking and results
World Archery sponsors