# Hugo Franco ready for his fourth archery world championship

**Date:** 09/04/2025

SURPASSING the performance of the previous edition is the goal that Cuban Hugo Franco has set for himself for the World Archery Championship, which from this Friday until the 15th will be hosted by the city of Gwangju, in South Korea.


Two years ago in Berlin, the Pinar del Río native accessed for the first time the second round of the elimination matches in the recurve modality and ranked among the best 48 of the tournament, although he had previously also set unprecedented records.


Finishing in 19th place in the double round at 70 meters with a score of 661 points is something that marked the career of the current captain of the national team.


"I have done very good preparation and I am in condition to improve that performance," assured Hugo, who will travel to the South Korean city with his coach Reiter Téllez.


"The greatest emphasis in these last weeks was on technical work. That guarantees you that under the pressure of competition you have the resources to face any difficulty, visualizing the basis of what you did in training," he commented just hours before leaving for the venue where the international federation's congress is already in session.


Hugo will be involved in his fourth event of this kind and will do so this time with the experience of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games still fresh.


"It's a shame that I arrive without being well known, because in the qualifying tournament for the Central Americans there is elite level with the Mexicans and Colombians, but it's not the same if I could have been in a world cup," he confessed, however he is convinced that he will know how to overcome any difficulty and offer the best possible performance.


Reiter shared the same view, who also confirmed that the last 12 weeks of work have been very intense, with high training volumes and the result has come out as expected in each of the evaluative checkpoints.


"We have done excellent preparation, for more than two or three years we had not been able to meet the parameters like this time. We reviewed and organized well every detail of the training program, emphasizing technical details that were giving us difficulties," he explained.


Regarding that last topic, he commented that the alignment of the string to the face to perform the shot has been the center of many of the sessions, in which they also sought to master adaptation to wind from different positions and shot timing.


Both know that they will also have another factor to adapt to once at the venue –and it is the most difficult because they can only do it there– which is the 13-hour time difference with respect to Cuba.


"From here we modeled some variants, but that will always be a factor against us for the first few days," Reiter noted.


With qualification assured for the 2026 Central American and Caribbean Games, Hugo and Reiter will face the world competition without the pressure of a specific result.


Performing well, achieving high scores, perhaps even breaking his own national record in the ranking round (677 points) and advancing as far as possible in the matches are achievable goals.


Hugo arrives now with the background of a 21st place in the double 70 at Paris 2024, with a score of 669 points. Then in the elimination round he won one match and lost in the second against Chinese Yan Wang, to finish in 17th place.