In his fifth Olympic appearance, Brady Ellison was less than five millimeters away from his first Olympic gold.
The 35-year-old Arizona native fell to South Korea’s Kim Woo-jin 6-5 in a dramatic men’s archery gold medal match on Sunday.
Ellison led 4-2 through three sets before Woo-jin won the fourth. In a winner-take-all fifth set, both archers shot a perfect 30 to send the match to a single, decisive shot.
Woo-jin went first and scored a 10. Ellison went next and also got a 10, but his shot was just a sliver further away from the very center if the target, cementing gold for Woo-jin.
The silver is Ellison’s second individual Olympic medal and second of the 2024 Paris Olympics. He earned individual bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics and mixed bronze on Friday with Casey Kaufhold. His medal collection also includes team silvers at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
On the other side, Woo-jin now has five career Olympic golds and three golds in Paris. He has won the team event with South Korea at three straight Olympics and added men’s individual and mixed team golds earlier in the 2024 Games.
South Korea’s Lee Woo-seok defeated Germany’s Florian Unruh 6-0 in the bronze medal match to round out the men’s archery podium.
