{"id":15753,"date":"2026-09-15T07:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T00:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=15753"},"modified":"2026-09-15T07:57:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T00:57:06","slug":"horackova-cements-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/horackova-cements-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Horackova cements legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marie Horackova flew the Czech flag proudly in Saltillo as she made more history for her country by winning the Archery World Cup Final in recurve women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horackova missed Thursday\u2019s quarterfinal draw due to travel issues but didn\u2019t miss the mark at Plaza de Armas, becoming somewhat of a party pooper for the fantastic Mexican support \u2013 which has been electric all weekend \u2013 by dismissing both Coahuila\u2019s Ana Paula Vazquez Flores 6-4 in the quarterfinals and Paris 2024 bronze medallist Alejandra Valencia 6-0 in the semifinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She would have to wait for an hour before the match against Valencia, though, due to thunder and lightning storms. But her second delay of the week did not bother her quest as she fended off Germany\u2019s Katharina Bauer 6-2 in the gold match to become Czechia\u2019s maiden World Cup champion in any discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, you have to adapt as fast as you can and maybe the thunder break got the nerves off, so maybe I felt more comfortable after,\u201d chuckled the two-time Olympian, who went straight to embrace boyfriend and fellow Czech archer Adam Li in the coaching box after the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShooting against someone who\u2019s on home soil? Wow\u2026 It\u2019s challenging but I love the crowd. I always love the energy the people gave us, even if it\u2019s for the opponent mostly. But I still really like the atmosphere they made here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since announcing herself emphatically as a serious player in recurve women by winning the Berlin 2023 World Archery Championships, Horackova has gone on to claim several Indoor World Series medals, including bronze in the 2024 Indoor Archery World Series Finals, and also won bronze at the Walbrzych-Ksiaz 2025 European Field Championships. But although she has been high up in the rankings for three years now, amazingly she still hadn\u2019t even reached a World Cup Final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following her successful gold medal campaign in Madrid \u2013 the last chance for archers to book guaranteed tickets to Saltillo \u2013 Horackova revealed how she had deliberately not competed in the world-renowned Vegas Shoot during the indoor season to prioritise a busy campaign at 70 metres, which also included the European Outdoor Championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And boy, has it paid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 28-year-old archer\u2019s medal haul for 2026 includes silver at the European Grand Prix Spring Arrows, gold at the 2026 Veronica\u2019s Cup, gold in Madrid and now gold in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She made herself Czechia\u2019s first recurve women\u2019s world champion in Berlin, and now Saltillo joins the German capital as a city dear to her heart \u2013 and to Czech archery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Czechia is one of the smaller nations in Europe, with a population of only 10 million, and sporting stars come few and far between, particularly at an international level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performances like today therefore accelerate Horackova\u2019s legacy and stardom in the country, but also raise the profile of archery as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true that in Czechia, archery is also small and promoting it here and by my achievements, it means a lot to me and I\u2019m like quite an icon of our sport in my country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope that more will come but it\u2019s quite complicated because we\u2019re not a big country and there are many other sports, mostly football, ice hockey, basketball, who are more supported, so then you have to be really good in a sport which is not so popular,\u201d she added. \u201cThen you can get also big support, but you really have to be one of the best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s one thing to be a world-class athlete; it\u2019s another to be one of the very few to carry an entire nation\u2019s hopes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horackova\u2019s class brushes it off as if it\u2019s nothing, though, which makes her so special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final ranking: Recurve women<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Marie Horackova, Czechia<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Katharina Bauer, Germany<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Elif Gokkir, T\u00fcrkiye<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Alejandra Valencia Trujillo, Mexico<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Elia Canales, Spain<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Zhong Qixuan, China<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Ana Paula Vazquez Flores,<\/a> Mexico<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Roberta Di Francesco, Italy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Marie Horackova flew the Czech flag proudly in Saltillo as she made more history for her country by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-15753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-archery"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t