Ella Gibson wins historic women's Vegas championship
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Great Britain's Ella Gibson is the new Vegas champion, after a historic five-way shootoff in the Championship Compound Female division. After the first end of inner-10 scoring, Miller was eliminated and Morgan Rives took third spot. Gibson and Alexis Ruiz shot down for the championship. They both shot 29s, and then moved to the 1.5cm scoring, where Gibson put in a strong 30 to Ruiz's 29 to finish.
"How does it feel? Amazing, nerve-wracking, and really cool. Me and the girls were just talking about in the practice range before we came out, we really wanted to make it to the smaller target ring. So that was the aim, and every end we were like, okay, we've got to do two more!" Gibson, an outdoor world record holder and known as one of the most methodical and disciplined women on the circuit, finished runner-up in 2024 to Gellenthien and placed 3rd in 2025, but finally took the big win she has been looking for.
"It feels incredible. Truthfully, I didn't feel like I was as prepared coming into Vegas as I normally am. So I was trying to not be too hard on myself if I didn't get the results I wanted. But I'm so glad that it all kind of came together. And that's
probably not from a couple weeks of practice, but more from my life of practice instead. But yeah, it feels amazing, and especially to do it with four other women." "I was saying to myself, play to your strengths, do what you're best at, which is just let yourself out of your body and focus on the middle and let your body do what it knows how to do and shoot your shots. And when I did that, it landed great."
"I think our division has been growing so much more over the years. Just the
standard as well as the entries. And I really hope we continue to see that happening."
The women's shootdown was preceded by three other finals categories – one of which also broke new ground. In Compound Young Adult, Chloe Nelsen beat three men – Grant Hammons, Liam Bartle, and defending champ Caleb Quiocho for the title.
"I'm feeling a lot of things. Definitely excitement. Just overwhelming. I don't know. Pride I guess. I wanted to do this for a long time," said Nelsen.
"This is my first year shooting Championship. I was shooting youth last year okay and... I just wanted to really challenge myself to push myself against the guys like Caleb and all the other amazing shooters in that division. I felt like it was a
great opportunity to try to do that, to go shoot that 900, to shoot 10K a day,
all of that. That experience is what I wanted. And finally, if I got on the stage, I wanted to do that as well."
Multiple Vegas champ Reo Wilde took his first title in the Championship Compound Senior category, with a fourth round victory end over Andy Fochuk of Canada, after both saw off Jeff McKee and former finalist Grant Schleusner. Wilde, who has been absent from top level competition for a couple of years, was emotional afterwards. "That's pretty crazy. Put in a lot of work, and I shot good out there. I didn't miss an X the whole time, so I'm just happy with the results. I couldn't
be happier."
This is your first title in the senior category. Will there be more? "I hope so. I hope this isn't the last for sure!"
Finally, Joel Turner took the Championship Recurve Barebow Open title over Rene Bekker of Great Britain after a single end of scoring. Turner let down twice on the stage, and explained, in his typically analytic style: "So, I knew what I needed to do. I knew what words I needed to say. And I had to let down twice. If you saw that. Because I have a very specific window. And so I'm like, lock it in and go. And if it doesn't break in the window, nobody's got a gun in my head. I don't need to shoot. So that's why I would let those down. Yeah, it broke good. " Turner, father of Bodie Turner, said. "What does this mean for me? Well, it's been a long time coming! I'm so proud of Bodie because he did that 900 90x. I mean, Greg Poole did an interview with him at Rushmore Rumble when he won that as a young adult champion, and he said, I want to do a 90X in Vegas. And there you go."