Jeff Metcalfe|Arizona Republic
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No one in the world is shooting archery as well as Brady Ellison.
The Arizona native won individually at the World Championships for the first time in June 2019, then in September set a men’s 70-meter ranking round world record (702 points out of a possible 720) at the Pan American Games.
In February in Las Vegas, the 31-year-old Ellison elevated even higher in his sport, shooting a perfect 900 over three days at the 54th Vegas Shoot, the first recurve archer to do so. That’s 30 arrows per day, all hitting the 10 ring.
“I really do believe that’s my biggest accomplishment to date,” Ellison says. “It’s the first time in my lifeand in recurve archery that someone’s been perfect. Shooting a 900 is truly something no one thought would ever happen.”
For the world No. 1-ranked recurve archer, though, the Las Vegas indoor 900 and other recent accomplishments were only a prelude to what Ellison believes he saw coming.
“I am shooting better than I’ve ever shot before,” he says. “I really feel like if we were going in four months, I would win gold” at the Tokyo Olympics.
But the Olympics won’t be starting July 24 as scheduled, postponed by the International Olympic Committee to no later than summer 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. So Ellison, like thousands of other athletes, is on hold both for qualifying for his fourth consecutive Olympics and winning the prize that has eluded him, an individual gold medal (he already has two team silvers and an individual bronze).
Rare extended down time
Ellison and his wife Toja, one of the top women's compound archers in the world, planned to be home to shoot in the Arizona Cup on April 3-5.
Instead, they returned early from California due to the pandemic for what could be a rare extended stay at their home in Miami-Globe, 70 miles east of metro Phoenix. The Arizona Cup was postponed until Oct. 23-25, and World Archery put all international competition on hold until at least July after the Olympic decision was made.
The Ellisons estimate they are away traveling for tournaments 250 days per year. It's no wonder he hasn't found time, presumably until now, to build a roof between his two 16x32-foot sheds on their six-acre property, perched off a dirt road above Miami High School.
Brady and Toja, who married in2016 before the Rio Olympics, live in one of the homes. His father Alfred, stepmother and grandfather live in the other. A couple of dogs, big and small, have their roam of the place, and there is ample space for all types of archery practice, be it targets set at 50 or 70 meters, 18 3-D animal targets or a field course covering almost two miles with a 1,000-foot elevation change.
"We have our own gym with all the essentials (full set of dumbbells, bench and squat racks)," says Ellison, projecting what the next few months could be like. "Now you have a year, you can slow down a little bit right now, still keep all your strengthup. Maybe focus more on gym, cardio, cut some weight, gain more muscle, focus on the things that aren't as technical archery-wise.
"I don't have to be shooting 100 percent scores right now. I could shoot 70 or 80 percent and just focus on the gym. For me it's good now that we're not waiting any more (for an IOC decision). The waiting was the worst part of it."
Magic man finds hand cure
Waiting around is not one of Ellison's strengths.
He shot a bear with a rifle when he was 11, left home at 16 to work with national team coach Kisik Lee at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., and won the 2008 U.S. Olympic Archery Trials -- held in Phoenix -- at 19.
He's been on the fast track to the Olympics since switching from compound bow shooting to recurve less than three years before the 2008 Beijing Games.
An elite archer, though, has longevity like in few other sports. Butch Johnson was 52 when he made his fifth U.S. Olympic team in 2008. If Ellison attains his goal of six Olympics -- something no Arizonan has done -- he'll still only be a few months shy of 40 at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
"Age really isn't a limiting factor as long as you're performing," Ellison says. "To have an Olympics on home ground, I definitely have to experience that. Then after that we'll decide how I feel and how my body is holding up."
His improved health is perhaps the prime reason Ellison is shooting so well now. From 2015 through 2018, he could not find a solution to a finger injury that doctors told him was not structural or due to nerve damage.
"But every time I shot, it felt like they were sticking an ice hot pick in my finger," he says. "I almost quit. The last indoor World Championships we had, I lost in one of the first matches. I almost missed the target. I almost said f--kthis, I'm done. I can't do this to myself any more because I know the archer I want to be and I can't be that any more."
Toja, who after overcoming a spinal infection when she was 12 became strict about nutrition and fitness, suggested her husband meet with a bioenergeticistin her native Slovenia for help with a thyroid issue in summer 2018.
"We didn't tell him I had a hand injury," Ellison says of Stanko Filipic, who does not speak English. "When he was measuring us, he said you have a pretty bad injury in your right hand. Then he's like you have problems with your left knee and there's something wrong with your heel (all correct diagnoses). He figured out everything on his own. I'm like OK, you're magic, let's do this. He fixed my hand in three days. Then the finger pain came back a little bit and he worked on it more then it went away."
Ellison tookthird at the World Cup final in September 2018 and has been on a tear ever since.
'Almost unhumanlike' shooting
The day after Ellison shot his perfect 900 at the South Point Hotel in Las Vegas for a $10,000 payday, Toja's 88-year-old grandfather Dr. Srecko Bergant died.
She had a premonition the night before that could have been interpreted as him healing from a broken collarbone or, as she feared, of the spirit of a man who ran 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) multiple times during his life leaving his body.
The contrast is life as we've always known it but especially poignant giventhe current crisis. Up, down, unpredictable, creating perspective that is hard to come by in good times alone.
"This virus has the possibility to change the world," Ellison says. "We may never be the same. We may be healthier or view things different or it may go back to the same. Who knows? But after something like this -- with so much sadness, so much fear, so much uncertainty -- for the whole world to come together at the (2021 Olympic) Games could be very powerful."
In the meantime, until the archery world restarts, the Ellisons will live the small-town life, do more fishing at Roosevelt, Apache and San Carlos lakes and maybe even do more planning for the family they eventually plan to start.
Brady keeps his deerheads in one of his sheds as a concession to his 26-year-old wife. Toja admits that Miami-Globe "isn't my favorite place on Earth" but that she makes the best of it because Brady is happy in rural Arizona and around his family. The value of both being elite archers and understanding what that requires is immeasurable.
"He's just been almost unhuman like" in archery, Toja says. "But at the same time, I can touch him. He's flesh and bone and skin just like any other people. It's just hard work and the mental game and all the energy he put (out). Even though this is our job, he still loves the sports. He loves to compete and push the limit. That's what makes him so good. I also think it helps because we're happy, and when you're happy things just go better."
She lovingly rubs Brady's scruffy beard and accurately says he looks like a man in quarantine. He plays along, understanding that sunshine can be found even in the dark times.
"I really like Arizona," says Ellison, who lived in Payson and Glendale growing up before leaving for the Olympic Training Center. "I chose Globe because I have two or three lakes I can put a boat in, all the animals I like to go chase are right around here.
"This town has been so amazing supporting both of us. Here for a lot of people, I'm just Brady. They know what we do and they follow it, but I'm just a normal guy."
U.S. Olympic archery men's medalists
1972: John Williams, gold
1976: Darrell Pace, gold
1984: Darrel Pace, gold; Rick McKinney, silver
1988: Jay Barrs, gold
1996: Justin Huish, gold
2000: Vic Wunderle, silver
2016: Brady Ellison, bronze
Note: McKinney, Barrs, Huish, Ellison have Arizona ties.
U.S. Olympic Archery Trials leaders
The U.S. currently has earned one men's and one women's berth in archery for the Tokyo Olympics but still can qualify full three-memberteams.
U.S. trials points are through two of four stages.
Men
1. Brady Ellison, 35 points
2. Jack Williams, 26.5
3. Matthew Nofel, 25
4. Thomas Stanford, 20.75
5. Josef Scarboro, 20.50
Women
1. Casey Kaufhold, 33 points
2. Mackenzie Brown, 24.25
3. Erin Mickelberry, 24
4. Eliana Claps, 23.5
5. Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez, 22.50
Reach the reporter at jeff.metcalfe@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8053. Follow him on Twitter @jeffmetcalfe.
