Bella Otter

This summer, Bella Otter — Atascadero’s very own compound bow archer — has been competing all over the world, representing not only the North County but Team USA. In the span of two months, Bella competed in Stages 3 and 4 of the Archery World Cup and also brought home two golds from the Pan American Championships.

First, in early June, Bella headed to Nova Scotia, Canada, to represent Team USA at the Pan American Championships.

Even with winds blowing at 35-plus mph, Bella ended up earning the No. 1 seed by over 30 points. This put Bella in line to compete in the U21 Mixed Team event. Bella shot alongside Tyler Heritage for Team USA. They competed in the Gold Medal match against El Salvador. Bella and Tyler were triumphant and landed Bella her first gold at the Pan Americans.

“We had a ton of fun. Won gold, [my] first international gold, and it was rad,” she said.

Bella also competed on elimination day for the Individual U21 Compound Female competition, where she went up against multiple archers from North and South America.

“They’re like sudden-death elimination matches,” added Bella. “I ended up making my way through the elimination matches all the way to the gold medal match.”

In the Individual U21 Compound Female gold medal match, Otter went against Paola Corado from El Salvador.

“Our match was super exciting. The coach that I had behind me in the coach’s box just kept saying, ‘man, you guys are good for TV,’” Bella laughed.

At the end of the match, Bella had the lead by a single point, until Paola tied Bella with her final shot. This led to a single-arrow shoot-off. One arrow each, and the closest to the center would win gold. Bella shot first, and landed a nine-point shot.

“In the end, her [Paola’s] final arrow landed in the eight ring, which

Atascadero’s Bella Otter Takes Her Bow International By Christianna Marks

is what did it. That’s what brought victory my way,” said Bella excitedly of winning her second gold of the Championships.

That same month, Bella headed to her first tournament overseas, where she represented Team USA at the Stage 3 of the World Cup in Paris, France.

“It was crazy just how many people were there [in Paris], and how many countries were there representing,” added Bella.

During her qualifier round, Bella shot well, and on Elimination Day, she shot against Italy’s Marcella Tonioli, who has previously won one World Cup Final and five World Cup stages.

At the end of their round, Bella and Tonioli were tied with three arrows each left to shoot. Bella ended up losing by two points, and her time competing at Stage 3 of the World Cup was over, but she brought back important knowledge with her.

Bella went international again at the end of July, competing in Stage 4 of the World Cup in Medellin, Colombia — where Bella’s first goal was to beat her qualification ranking from France.

“Overall, I went from originally qualifying like 47th in France to 28th in Colombia,” she stated.

Bella’s 28th ranking meant she participated in the USA Women’s Team team rounds alongside Makenna Proctor and Linda Ochoa-Anderson. It was Linda’s final time competing in a World Cup.

The three ladies on Team USA won their first match against Ecuador, but when they went up against Mexico in their second round, Team USA ended up losing by a couple of points.

Bella then moved on to the individual matches, where she had her first ever World Cup Elimination Round win.

“My first match was against a girl from Brazil. I did end up winning

that one,” Bella said.

Winning her first match put Bella up against Colombian archer Sara Lopez for her second round. Sara is known as one of the best female archers, and she’s the only archer to win the entire Archery World Cup six times. Bella added that Sara has been a huge inspiration to her since she was 13.

“When I found out, when I realized that my next elimination match was literally going head-to-head with her, with the Sara Lopez, it was this crazy full circle moment of like ‘look where I am’ kind of thing,” she said. “At 13, I was just shooting in our local archery shop with some little bow and had no idea that any of this could even could happen.”

Bella went into her match with Sara excited to demonstrate how far she’s come since she was that young 13-year-old girl. While Bella put in good scores, she ended up losing the match to her childhood favorite, bringing her Stage 4 World Cup journey to a close.

“I’m definitely excited. I’m super excited that this feels like it’s only the beginning,” stated Bella. 

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