The 25-year-old American also claimed victory at the 2010 and 2011 editions in Edinburgh and Istanbul respectively and, after finishing runner-up at Tokyo 2012 and third last year in Paris, he has now finished on the podium in each of the last five Finals.

But he had his work cut out this time around against a competitor, almost a full decade his junior, who looks set to become an archery megastar less than two years ahead of a home Olympic Games.

Indeed, it was D'Almeida, the world ranked number nine who won a silver medal at last month's Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, who struck first, shooting three successive nines to win the second set after the first one had finished all level.

But, not for nothing does Ellison hold the record for the longest continuous period as the world's top ranked recurve archer, a position he held from August to 2011 until April 2013, and he duly won the third set before the points were shared once again in fourth to take the match into the deciding fifth.

Here the drama intensified, with Ellison hitting an eight with his final arrow when a nine would have been enough to secure victory.

This ensured the excitement of a single-arrow, closest-to-the-centre-wins shootout, and, after D'Almeida shot a nine, Ellison managed a similar score, albeit one that was close to the centre, therefore meaning he had won gold by mere millimetres.

The recurve women's final was almost as exciting, with Aída Román of Mexico continuing the Latin American domination of the individual female events over the weekend by defeating Cheng Ming of China 6-4.

Aída Román won the individual and mixed team titles for Mexico ©World Archery



Cheng's compatriot Xu Jing defeated Russian Tatiana Segina for bronze, while the final place on the male podium was taken by Rich Van der Ven of The Netherlands, who defeated Florian Kahllund of Germany in the third-place play off.

It was the second gold medal of the afternoon for Román, who had earlier teamed up with Eduardo Velez to win the mixed team final with a regulation 6-0 victory over Iliana Deineko and Florian Faber of Switzerland. 

Yet, while this match was fairly one-sided, the slightly less technologically advanced recurve bow, together with the set-orientated format, generated a day of top-level sport that was less predictable and just that little bit more thrilling than yesterday.