It’s the final day of the Vegas Shoot, and that means one thing—shoot offs. This year, there will be two big shoot off in the championship compound open and female division. The open division has 25 clean archers headed to the shoot off, and there are two clean archers in the women’s division.
In the championship compound female division Tanja Gellenthien and Paige Pearce are tied with 900 points. They’ll shoot off tonight at 5:30 p.m. to decide the Vegas champion.
“Normally I don’t get nervous until the last end, and today I started getting nervous at the eighth end. So I knew it was going to be a little harder than usual. I’m super relieved it’s Tanja and I. We go back and forth all the time. We’ve both shot really well all weekend. It will be a good shoot off,” Pearce said.
During the final ends Pearce and Tanja were spotting for each other, and offering words of encouragement.
“A lot of people just see us as competitors down here, but we really are friends. We spend so much time together and we respect each other so much. While each of us wants to win, we want the other to do well,” Pearce said.
It’s not uncommon for the last end of a clean round to be the most nerve wracking, and on Gellenthien’s last end, she did one of the most difficult things in archery—letting down.
“I had to let down on the last arrow. It’s not one those you want to risk not making a good shot. I came up and it didn’t feel right. So I was like, let down you have enough time. Reset and make a strong shot, and I’m glad I did,” she said.
In the compound open division, Gellenthien’s husband, Braden, was one of the 25 archers to shoot a 900.
“Tanja and I have been training together everyday this year—working hard and pushing each other. I feel like I got most of my nerves out watching her get her 900, so when I did it was a little easier. I’m to the moon happy and I can’t wait to see what we do later today,” he said.
Last year’s Vegas champion and last night’s Indoor World Series Champion, Bodie Turner, shot a 900 and will be in tonight's shoot off. “I’m just going to go as long as I can, and shoot as many Xs as I can in a row. That’s all I can really try for.” Turner said.
Vegas Shoot Off Rules
Archers shoot three arrows at 20 yards per round. For the first round of the shoot off, arrows are scored using normal Vegas scoring. Starting the second end, the X ring becomes the ten ring and the rest of the gold is a nine.
You can watch the shoot off live on World Archery's YouTube channel from 5:30 p.m. local.
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