OSG Mississauga 2016

I recently had the pleasure to be the coach once again for the Ontario Summer Games (OSGs), this year was held in Mississauga Ontario. This year was special for the athletes because it was the largest Ontario Summer games in history, awarding over 2000 awards in total. This year’s opening ceremonies were very cool, it reminded me of when I went to the Canada Winter Games. The athletes entered into a whole arena full of fans cheering them on, and they had a bunch of live entertainment. The opening ceremonies were even streamed for the first 45 minutes.

This year was also a big year for the archery event as well, for this was the first year that they change the OSG format. This year they decided to shoot two 720s the first day and the second day shooting at 720 with a round robin of matchplay and match set. Archery lingo inside, basically it means instead of shooting three distances they only shot one distance the three days. I personally think that the exposure to match play and set would be beneficial for future athletes because the tournament type would be like international events (e.g. olympics).

The tournament was an eventful year for the Eastern zone, it was definitely full of experience that these athletes will learn from and remember for the rest of their lives. They learned how to shoot in; high winds, high humidity, heat, and down pouring rain with chances of thundershowers. They learned the importance/how to keep equipment and scorecards dry. We were very fortunate to have found some towels and a laundry card that we can dry the equipment with, thank goodness I brought a hair dryer for all the shoes.

This year the committee decided that to make sure that all the athletes had a chance to experience the matchplay and match set they decided to do a round robin. Traditionally match play and match set are done in a single elimination format (or double elimination rounds if you’re in Canada). The archers seemed to really enjoy a different shooting format, after understanding the rules for the match play and match set. However, by the end of the day all the archers were completely exhausted by the end of the day.
As a coach I was completely ecstatic with the results, after all these athletes had faced challenges that most had never faced before (e.g. equipment failures, whether, or even being independent from their parents). Eastern zone did fantastically well taking home a large portion of not only the 720 medals but also for the round robin medals. The results are posted on the OSG and the OAA websites.

https://www.oaa-archery.on.ca/tournaments/records-and-results

https://www.osgmississauga.ca/sport

I hope I have the pleasure to be the coach for the Eastern zone in the 2018 OSGs in London Ontario, and if I’m super lucky I get to see these kids again.

For all my eastern zone archers that are reading, it was a pleasure to get to know you and to shoot with you.

Ontario Spring Classic

This past weekend, I attended the Ontario Spring Classic, one of Canada’s premiere archery events usually held in Toronto. This year’s event attracted over 110 archers from Nova Scotia to British Colombia and several international archers including France, Netherlands and the United States.

The Ontario Spring Classic is a two-day tournament and usually held every year over Father’s day weekend. The tournament starts with a ranking round on Saturday consisting of either double 720 round OR FITA1440 round. On Sunday the tournament finishes with a complete double elimination round.

This year’s Spring Classic was a double 720 held at Bill Connor Secondary, and doubled as trials for the Youth Olympic Games and the Pan Am games trial run. This year’s competition marked my first outdoor tournament of the 2014 season. Saturday’s weather conditions for the double 720 were crazy. For June, it was very cold at 11°C outside and there were a lot of swirling winds that caused havoc for everyone. The winds were totally unpredictable, they were constantly changing direction and speed, forcing you to really watch closely on each and every shot.

For me, I took the approach to have a good time, talk with friends, continue to embrace it as a new challenge, and a true learning experience. Although the weather finally cleared up for the last two ends, after fighting the winds, I was happy to get back to the hotel, take off my shoes, and sit in the hotel’s hot tub.

Sunday was a complete reversal of weather conditions, sunny, calm and about 20°C. It was an absolutely beautiful day for shooting. I did manage to last through three rounds of elimination, finally losing to my World Indoor Championships teammate Gayle from Nova Scotia. For me, the best part was getting back to competition, shooting with some of Canada’s top World and Olympic archers, seeing all my friends and spending time with my mom and sister who accompanied me.

MICA 2014

This past Wednesday, South nation archery supply held an awards ceremony; everyone did extremely well this past indoor season.  Sydney, Josh and Cole all did very well this year winning several club and provincial medals. This past year, I was able to participate in a couple of tournament, however for me it was nice to see everyone again after being away for school.  My highlight from this past indoor season was the MICA team event.

The Multi-Indoor Championships of the Americas OR MICA for short. MICA is only one of very few indoor International Championships that is open to all archers that you do not have to travel for. Designated host archery clubs throughout North and South America host tournaments for both individuals and teams to submit scores from January 1 – April 30. Male or female archers can compete individually in cadet, junior, senior or master categories in either compound or recurve. Additionally clubs can also host junior or senior male or female teams in either compound or recurve, provided they are all from the same club.

Since it is a FITA sanctioned event, individuals submit their score from a double indoor FITA (60 arrows) and the team event submit a FITA team score (24 arrows) where each archer shoots 2 arrows alternating for four ends. This is one of my favorite events and one of the few times you can practice the team event.

This year, I shot with my sister Sydney, and our friend Lindsay and we captured the Silver this year behind the Brazilian team. On other exciting, my brother Joshua shot with his two friends, Josh and Kaleb Parker, participating in as a Junior team [all who are not Juniors] and shot new Canadian record for Junior Men Recurve Team division with a score of 211, however finished in fifth place overall.

Congratulations to everyone at South nation for another successful year. A special thanks to our coach Kathleen Miller and Larry Smith for all their hard work this year.

Third Place

I am very pleased to announce that this blog, Jordan Sequillion : My Quest for Archery Olympic Gold, finished as the third Best Sports Blog of the Year for 2013 by the Canadian Blog Awards.

Thanks to everyone who took time to vote for me, I can not express my level of gratitude to you. My hope is to continue to deliver quality information about archery in the future.

2014 Ontario Indoor 10-ring Target Championship

All this week, from February 15th to February 23th, clubs across Ontario are hosting the mail-in scoring tournament. The 10-ring target championship is an indoor FITA tournament and is the standard format for the Canadian National Indoor Championships and all World Indoor Championships. The tournament follows standard FITA rules using a 10-ring 40cm target ( 60 cm for Cub and Pre-cub Recurve) with two rings each of Gold, Red, Blue, Black and White and everyone shooting from 18M. Consistent archers may choose to use a vertical 3 spot to avoid breaking arrows and nocks.

Yesterday, I shot in my 9^th Provincial Indoor 10-ring Target Championship. Although I have not always won a medal, I have always enjoyed it and this year was no exception. Being away at university and focusing on my education and career development, I was unable to participate in the Provincial Indoor Field Championship. That aside, I have been able to train. Redeemer has been extremely generous to afford me the gym a couple of days a week to train and practice. I have been fortunate enough to be able to co-ordinate some virtual training time with my awesome coach Kathy Millar via SKYPE. That aside, archery is a social sport and although it has been great to keep shooting, what I really missed was shooting with sister, my little brothers (both who are not little anymore) and my archery family. I had a lot of fun shooting, joking around and spending time with my family and friends.

If you live in Ontario and have never competed in an indoor target championship, check out the Ontario Association of Archer’s website for host site and dates near you. Hurry as pre-registration is usually required.

Indoor Archery World Cup Final – Vegas Shoot Starts Today

 

This year’s Vegas Shoot is the biggest ever – with around 2,200 registered competitors. Attracted by a generous prize fund, the championship division features a large contingent of professional athletes each year – while the flight categories, for amateur archers, have seen a drastic increase in popularity.

Live scores are available throughout the tournament, in which archers shoot 30 arrows at a triangular triple-spot face each of the three days of the tournament. Three of these 300 rounds (an NFAA – the organisers – round in the USA) decide the final rankings at The Vegas Shoot.

Read More…

2013 Annual Report

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 51,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 19 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to read the entire report

ARCHERY COACH HONOURED AT SPORT LEADERSHIP AWARDS GALA

Canadian Archery coach Joan McDonald (Richmond Hill, ON) was one of a number of Canada’s top coaches that were honoured at the Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Awards Gala, hosted by the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC), this past weekend in Calgary. McDonald was a recipient of the Petro-Canada Coaching Excellence Award. This prestigious award recognizes coaches whose athletes have excelled at World Championships, Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Special Olympics World Games.

McDonald is the personal coach of Crispin Duenas (Toronto, ON), who won the bronze  medal in the Men’s Recurve Bow category at the 2013 World Archery Championship in Belek Antalya, Turkey (September 29^th – October 6^th). The bronze medal marked the first time in 42 years that Canada had finished on the podium at a World Championship in the Men’s Recurve individual category.

McDonald has been personal coach to Duenas for the past 13 years. She is also the founder and Head Coach of the Bullseye Buccanneers Archery Club in Richmond Hill, Ontario.  McDonald has been instrumental in the development of Duenas as an archer from the ‘Learn to Shoot’ stage of Archery Canada’s Long-Term Archer Development (LTAD) model through to the ‘Shoot to Excel’ stage. “Joan’s confidence in my abilities and her keen attention to the coaching of the technical and psychological aspects of archery, have led to my steady progress and success at the national and international levels”, said Duenas.  “I have no doubt that without Joan’s coaching and guidance, I wouldn’t have been on the podium at Worlds. I’m also sure that under Joan’s continued coaching, I’m on the path to a long and successful career as a high performance archer.”

“I’m thrilled and honoured to have won this prestigious award. Crispin is a tremendous young man and athlete with lots of potential”, said McDonald. “My sincere thanks and appreciation to Petro-Canada and the CAC.”  Archery Canada

Congratulations Joan!

Silver for Canada at World Youth Archery Championship

Canada finished the 2013 World Youth Archery Championship in Wuxi, China on a high note as the Men’s Team in the Cadet (age class) Compound Bow category won the silver medal. The Canadian Team, comprised of Hunter McGinnis (Winnipeg, MB), Logan Kupchanko (Regina, SK) and Tyler Murphy (Fredericton, NB), faced Turkey in the gold medal match on Saturday. After building an early lead, Turkey prevailed in winning the match by a score of 224-218. Kupchanko followed in the footsteps of his older brother Michael who was a member of the Junior Men’s Compound Team that won the gold medal for Canada at the 2011 World Youth Archery Championship. Read More…

Congratulations Hunter, Logan and Tyler and to the entire Canadian team.

Crispin Duenas Brings Home Bronze Medal from World Archery Championship

In the bronze medal match, Duenas who is 27 years old, won his first-ever World Championship medal. After defeating a string of top opponents in the elimination rounds (including 2012 Olympic silver medallist Takaharu Furukawa of Japan and 2012 World Cup medallist Markiyan Ivashko of Ukraine), the 2012 and 2008 Canadian Olympian faced China’s Dai Xiaoxiang for the first time in competition. Against the reigning individual Olympic bronze medallist and World Cup Final silver medallist, Duenas stormed to victory in just three sets. Under the pressure to deliver a 10 with his last arrow to win, Duenas blasted an arrow down for a perfect score. “Surprisingly, it felt easy to execute my shot”, Duenas commented. “It’s my first time out here in front of this big crowd at the World Championship, and I’m just really happy right now. I just kept it in my head that it’s exactly the same thing that I’m doing all the time. It made it a lot easier for me.” Read More…

Congratulations Crispin and the entire Canadian Team!!!