Preview: World Field Championships return to Yankton

Preview: World Field Championships return to Yankton

The Yankton 2026 World Archery Field Championships begin this week in South Dakota, USA, at the Lewis and Clark Recreation Area, with world titles available in senior and under-21 categories.

It's the 29th edition of the championships, which have a history going back to 1969, when the tournament was also held in the USA. A long list of World and Olympic target champions have also won medals in the field discipline, with Italian legend (and Olympic gold medallist) Michele Frangilli describing field competition as the 'university of archery'.

Many well-known recurve and compound target archers are competing at the 2026 championships including defending champion Brady Ellison, Casey Kaufhold, Mathias Fullerton,Ella Gibson, Mike Schloesser, Paige Pearce, Nico Wiener, Nicolas Girard, Florian Unruh, Chiara Rebagliati and Willem Bakker. Kaufhold, the world number four, is competing at her first field Worlds.

The competition has a particular focus on barebow, as one of the two 'majors' of the discipline.

On that side, the top competitors include many previous World and World Games medallists and finalists, such as Cinzia Noziglia, Simone Barbieri, Oliver Hicks, Simon Fairweather, Nicky Fairweather, Cesar Vera Bringas, Alicia Baumert, David Jackson, Erik Jonsson, Ludvig Rohlin and Leo Pettersson.

As is standard with World Archery field events, the competitors will shoot an unmarked course of 24 targets on the first day, followed by a different marked course of 24 targets on the second day, followed by eliminations and finals.

The event will be followed by the World 3D Archery Championships at the same venue.

What’s happening? The 29th edition of the biannual World Field Archery Championships, held for the second time in Yankton, South Dakota, USA after a previous edition in 2022.

What’s at stake? Titles in individual and team events across recurve, compound and barebow, in senior and under-21 categories.

Who’s competing? A total of 244 archers representing 31 nations.

What’s the story? This year’s event is larger than the previous edition and promises some stellar competition, with five of the six individual champions returning from Lac La Biche 2024. It will be immediately followed by the World 3D Archery Championships at the same venue, with some athletes competing in both competitions.

Live scores will be available throughout the week on the World Archery website, along with coverage across World Archery’s digital platforms.

More information on broadcasting of the event will be available shortly.

These are the senior archers defending their titles from the Lac La Biche 2024 World Archery Field Championships:

There are two phases to competition at this year’s world field championships: qualification and eliminations.

Qualification takes place over two days. The first day consists of 24 unmarked targets (unknown distances) and the second day consists of 24 marked targets. Archers shoot three arrows per target (72 per day in total) and the maximum score per arrow is six points (inner yellow).

The maximum score in qualification is 864 points (432 per day).

Targets can be 80, 60, 40 or 20 centimetres in diameter. Barebow archers shoot at targets set between 5 and 50 metres away. Recurve and compound archers shoot at targets set between 10 and 60 metres away.

The top 16 qualifiers advance to matchplay, in which archers shoot head-to-head over a set number of targets, with the highest scorer advancing and the lower scorer being eliminated.

Matches in the first round and quarterfinals consist of six targets.

Semifinals and finals consist of four targets.

The winner of each category is awarded the title of World Archery Field Champion.

A total of 244 archers from the following 31 national teams are registered to compete in Yankton:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and USA.

These are the top ranked target archers competing in Yankton:

There is no world ranking for barebow archers. Field championships count towards the world ranking for recurve and compound archers.

Competition at the 2026 World Field Archery Championships begins with unmarked qualifying on Wednesday.