When best friends become international competition

At the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games archery field one pair of students stands out. Athletes are often seen warming up in country specific tents and eating with others who share their uniform, but for Sydney Sullenberger of Team USA and Giselle De Sousa of Portugal, hanging out with the competition just makes sense.

The unlikely international friendship began in Türkiye at the Archery World Cup in 2022. Knowing they both planned on attending Columbia University in New York City in the fall, the duo arranged to meet up for the first time on neutral ground.

Before becoming best friends and roommates, Sullenberger and De Sousa knew each other simply as tough international competition, however, all that changed when they both enrolled at Columbia and joined the school’s archery team.

“Here we are,” Sullenberger reflected with a smile after the FISU Games women’s compound individual qualifying round. “Now we’ve gone all over the world together.”

In Germany, the pair are rivals on the field once again. They—and their families who have travelled to support—cheer each other on and are sure to meet up after every round to debrief and grab food together.

Plus, the duo is quite familiar with this situation of going head-to-head..

“We shoot against each other like all the time. So, we’re very much used to it, but it’s fun to shoot against people you know,” De Sousa said about the possibility of the duo facing off. “I always know it would be a great match, it’s great energy and everything. But we also shoot together as a team at school too. So, you get the possibility of both angles a little bit.”

One of their favourite moments of international competition came in 2022, during a training week in Mexico, when they met in the final and ended the regular round of shots tied. Of course, they had to advance to a dramatic shoot-off, and, for the record, De Sousa won.

“It’s been amazing because we know all the ins and outs of what it means to do this or what it takes. It is cool to have somebody to share that with that has insider knowledge,” Sullenberger said. “Now we’re captains of our team together, so that’s another role we kind of share.”

Calming the mind

Even for best friends competing in the same sport, archery becomes individual the moment athletes step up to shoot.

Facing down the target, the archer’s quiver isn’t the only piece of equipment filled with possibility, part of the sport is calming the mind while standing solo at the line.

“A lot of times I’m thinking about how I need to work on keeping my arm straight and engaging it,” the Portuguese said.

De Sousa also shared how much focus she gives to just thinking specifically about every aspect of her shot.

“And then hopefully, I’ll just let the shot just flow and ideally it will then go in the middle—if I do everything right.”

Finishing strong

Sullenberger and De Sousa started the competition in different sections of the bracket. However, as they passed through the qualifying stage and the round of 32, the chances of colliding at some point became more and more realistic.

When the co-captains entered the round of 16, they were each one win away from facing off. While Sullenberger breezed through her match against Grace Chappell from Great Britain, De Sousa encountered more difficulty. She tied Arina Cherkezova at 144 apiece and pushed the game to a final shoot-off decision that the individual neutral athlete ended up winning.

As the only roommate left in the competition, Sullenberger had to finish what De Sousa started. So, when the social sciences student met Cherkezova in the round of eight, she avenged her friend’s loss to the tune of 144-142. Unfortunately for the 21-year-old, her individual compound tournament came to an end in the quarterfinals with a 144-140 loss to Kim Sooyeon of the Republic of Korea.

Sullenberger won’t be leaving Germany empty handed however. Later in the week, she helped the USA claim silver in the women’s compound team event.

The Rhine-Ruhr 2025 archery competition at Zeche Zollverein wrapped up on Saturday, 26 July, with Korean teammates Nam Suhyeon (women’s recurve) and Moon Yeeun (women’s compound) capturing individual gold medals, along with Chinese Taipei’s Tang Chih-Chun (men’s recurve) and India’s Sahil Rajesh Jadhav (men’s compound).

The Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games take place from 16-27 July. Watch all the competitions live on fisu.tv . Click on the link to find the full schedule.

Written by Sarah Maat, FISU Young Reporter, Canada

The Young Reporters Programme exemplifies FISU’s commitment to more than sports competitions. At every FISU World University Games, a group of talented aspiring sports journalists are chosen to cover the competition.