For six days at the beginning of September, Szilvásvárad became the centre of international 3D archery. The 2026 HDH-IAA World 3D Archery Championships recorded 799 paid entries, with competitors gathering at the Lipizzaner Equestrian Centre before heading onto the courses around the Hungarian village.
For traditional archers, the scale of the championship was only part of the attraction. Traditional Recurve, Traditional Longbow and Primitive Bow & Horsebow competed as distinct equipment divisions alongside the modern classes.
The championship was decided over three qualification days followed by the finals. Each qualification day presented 28 three-dimensional animal targets, with the courses running through technically demanding forest terrain. That meant the result depended on more than shooting form: archers repeatedly had to judge distance, terrain and shooting angle before making the shot.
Traditional bows across generations
One of the most interesting aspects of Szilvásvárad was the age range competing with traditional equipment.
At just 14 years old, Virág Hanna Gyurkovics won the Cadet Primitive Bow & Horsebow world title. The result put one of the championship's most traditional equipment divisions in the hands of a new generation of archers.
At the other end of the age spectrum, the Veteran divisions kept traditional equipment firmly in competition as well. Italian archer Gabriele Pizzingrilli earned bronze in Veteran Male Traditional Recurve, while Annamaria Mattei took bronze in Adult Female Traditional Longbow.
Italy also celebrated a world title through Monia Fagiani, who finished her championship with 437 points and gold after the three qualification courses and final.
There were notable results elsewhere in the international field too. Greek club KRIS travelled to Hungary with four competitors, and its traditional contingent returned with a world title, adding another country to the traditional podiums in Szilvásvárad.
Hungarian traditional archers also collected medals on home ground. In one of the youth traditional divisions, Ágoston Ádám took silver and Marcell Bödey bronze, while Slovakia's Sebastian Vatlavic won the title. The podium was a good example of what an international championship should look like: neighbouring archery traditions meeting on the same course rather than the event becoming a showcase for a single country.
A different challenge from target archery
3D archery gives traditional equipment an interesting competitive setting because the shot is never quite repeated.
Instead of a fixed target face at a known distance, the archer encounters animal-shaped targets positioned through natural terrain. Across the three qualification days in Szilvásvárad, competitors faced 84 targets before the championship moved into its final stages.
For a longbow, horsebow or traditional recurve archer, that changes the character of the competition considerably. The bow may be simple; the problem presented by the course is not.
The championship also showed how broad contemporary traditional archery has become. Traditional Longbow represents a very different bow and shooting experience from a short horsebow, while Traditional Recurve occupies another part of the spectrum. Yet all three could compete within the same World Championship structure without being absorbed into modern equipment classes.
That may be the most interesting result from Szilvásvárad beyond any individual medal.
Nearly 800 entries came to one 3D World Championship, and traditional bows were not there as a demonstration or historical sideshow. They were there to compete.