Ella Gibson: World Games gold medallist targeting more records
- Published
Gibson's 2022 season has seen her win two World Cup rounds and gold at the World Games
Archer Ella Gibson wants to break more records after winning World Games gold for the first time.
Gibson, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, won the compound archery title at the event in Birmingham, Alabama on 9 July.
The 22-year-old started the Games seeded ninth and beat world number one Sarah Lopez, of Colombia, in the final.
Gibson is now expected to move up to number one in the world when the rankings are officially updated.
"It feels incredible," Gibson told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
"I didn't go to the World Games expecting to medal, never mind to win, so to come away with the gold there was really something else."
The World Games is held every four years and is a multi-discipline international tournament for events not contested in the Olympics.
While recurve archery is an Olympic sport compound archery is not, however it does feature in the Paralympics. It involves a bow commonly used in hunting that is about 40 inches in length, and so much shorter than those in recurve.
As well as the victory in the World Games, this season Gibson has also won World Cup rounds in Antalya and Paris to increase her standing.
Still, she said the prospect of becoming world number one was "kind of crazy", having initially set herself the goal of breaking into the top 10.
"After the second World Cup of the year in Paris I won that and was world number two. So the year's been a little bit crazy."
Gibson - who got her start in archery while at school - said that experience, and having luck on her side, has been behind her success.
"There's world records that I want to break and have," Gibson added.
"I have another World Cup in just over a week [in Colombia] so I'll be going to that. Obviously it would be amazing if I won that but I'm not going to put any expectations on it.
"I think winning two this year is already enough."
She will then compete in the World Field Championships in October before the World Cup final, an invite-only event with just eight competitors.
"I've never done it before so that's' going to be a really interesting and hard shoot, when there's only eight people there you know it's going to be high-level."