Marcus D’Almeida has been named World Archery’s best athlete of 2023 as India’s first individual World Archery Champion Aditi Swami and the national team’s instrumental new trainer Sergio Pagni also collected honours during the Indoor Archery World Series Finals in Las Vegas.
Swami was named breakthrough athlete of the year and Pagni coach of the year.
D’Almeida won the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in 2023, finished third at the world championships and spent most of the year ranked number one in the world after securing the top spot in the Sanlida World Archery Rankings for the first time in his career in late February.
“Number one of the world, for me, was a place I’d always dreamed of. It’s something I’d look at and think that, one day, I’d be there,” he said after the announcement. “Now I am. And I’m very happy.”
“But I also know that it’s an achievement of the past, and I need to keep working, keep training.”
Marcus receiving top honours in the World Archery Awards comes exactly 10 seasons since he was named World Archery’s first breakthrough athlete of the year – back in 2014.
He is now the fourth athlete to collect the overall trophy. The previous winners were Brady Ellison (2011), Mariana Avitia (2012) and Ella Gibson (2022). The award was retired from 2013 to 2021 in favour of only choosing division winners.
