Slovenia’s Tim Jevsnik had spent the previous two days fishing and had no plans to compete at the Swiss Open Lausanne 2026. A last-minute phone call changed that. By Sunday, he had beaten the world’s top two compound archers and walked away with the men’s gold medal.
The world No. 8, who recently won the compound title at the Yankton 2026 World Archery 3D Championships, was drafted into the competition after teammate Aljaz Matija Brenk withdrew.
“Honestly, two days ago I was fishing and wasn’t planning at all on coming here,” Jevsnik said. “There was one phone call that basically was like, ‘Oh, do you want to go? Because there’s a spot, some guy is not going. Aljaž, my teammate, is not going.’
“I just went home for my bow and basically left for Switzerland. Normally I do every tournament, but I said to myself I was going to take a little break from that. But I’m glad I didn’t.”
What followed was a run of narrow victories against two of the biggest names in compound archery. Jevsnik edged world No. 1 Mathias Fullerton 150-149 in the quarterfinals, ending the Dane’s campaign after he had topped qualification with the only perfect 600.
He then produced another 150 to beat world No. 2 Mike Schloesser by a point in the semifinals before closing out the final with a 149-147 victory over Italy’s Fabrizio Aloisi.
For Jevsnik, the title reflected a shift in how he approached competition. Rather than being content with reaching finals, he had begun to believe he could win them.
“I started believing in myself more that I can win. Not just that I can do finals well, or I can get to finals very often, I can also win them. That’s the mentality that changed,” he said.
Beating Fullerton and Schloesser made the win even more special, but Jevsnik said the rivalry on the shooting line came with mutual respect and friendship.
“We’re all really good friends. It’s just everybody wants to win here, and I really respect both of them. So I’m really happy for today, that it turned out the way that it did,” he said.
Schloesser bounced back from his semifinal defeat to take bronze, shooting a perfect 150 to beat India’s Priyansh.
