Archery's calendar tightens toward its centerpiece this month. On 12–13 September, the Saltillo 2026 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final gathers the top four ranked archers in each of the recurve and compound divisions, men and women, for a winner-take-most weekend that closes out the World Cup's 20th anniversary season. The line-up of 32 was confirmed this week, and it arrives thinner than planned: six athletes from the original roster have withdrawn to prepare for the 20th Asian Games, which open in Okazaki, Japan barely two weeks later.
Host nation Mexico fields the largest contingent of the weekend — seven archers across both disciplines — and Saltillo becomes the sixth Mexican city to stage the Final, following Merida (the very first, in 2006), Mexico City, Tlaxcala twice, and Hermosillo. Compound women open the finals at 14:00 local time on the Saturday, with recurve and the remaining compound gold medal matches following through Sunday.
- Champion — 30,000 CHF
- Runner-up — 15,000 CHF
- Third — 8,000 CHF
- Fourth — 1,500 CHF
Prize purse per division — four medal events, recurve and compound, men and women.
Can anyone stop Lopez from a tenth title?
No archer arrives in Saltillo carrying more weight than Sara Lopez. The Colombian compound great already holds nine Hyundai Archery World Cup Final titles — a record with no rival in sight in either discipline, either gender — and a tenth would extend a run that began before some of her competitors had picked up a bow competitively. Her 2024 win in Tlaxcala was won in what World Archery itself called "emotional scenes"; her return to the Final this year, after a season many expected to be a quieter one, has been framed by the federation as a coronation nobody else in the compound women's field is quite ready to contest.
"No-one has come close to challenging her place as the greatest compound women's archer of all time." World Archery, previewing Saltillo 2026
The chaser with the best claim is Andrea Becerra, the Mexican compound archer who beat Lopez to win her own maiden World Cup Final title in Nanjing last season — the first Mexican woman ever to do so — and now gets to defend it in front of a home crowd. If Saltillo repeats that result, it will be one of the sport's cleaner storylines: the record-holder against the woman who has already shown she can beat her, on the challenger's own soil.
Ellison's quiet pursuit of a seventh crown
On the recurve side, Brady Ellison heads to Mexico as the most successful man in World Cup Final history, having taken his sixth title in Nanjing last year to move clear of South Korea's long-standing benchmark. A seventh in Saltillo would put daylight between Ellison and every recurve man who has shot the format, at an age when most peers on the circuit have shifted focus toward Los Angeles 2028 qualification rather than one-off Final wins. Brazil's Marcus D'Almeida, beaten by Ellison in that Nanjing final, returns as the man most likely to test him again.
Three fixtures worth watching
Field & 3D Worlds, Yankton (24 Sep – 4 Oct)
The World Archery Field Championships and World Archery 3D Championships run back-to-back in South Dakota, drawing the discipline's specialists away from the flat, 70-metre target game and into the woods.
Archery at the Asian Games (26 Sep – 3 Oct)
Compound and recurve events shift to the Multipurpose Square in Okazaki's Central Park, pulling a chunk of the Saltillo withdrawal list — and much of Asia's elite — into a single week of continental competition.
A changing of the guard in Asia (late 2025)
India's Aditi Swami, 17, became her country's first individual compound world champion, while Sheetal Devi retained her World Para title over defending champion Oznur Cure — two results still shaping how this season's compound fields are read.
Reporting drawn from World Archery's competition previews and results pages, and USA Archery's news desk, current as of 7 September 2026. Prize figures and start times per the official Saltillo 2026 event page; totals may be adjusted by World Archery ahead of the weekend.