Canada Captures the Bronze

Norbert Murphy captured the Bronze yesterday in the Men’s individual Compound -W1 division.

To reach the semi-finals, Norbert first defeated Shinichi Saito of Japan and Peter Kinik of Slovakia.  In the semi-final he faced Jeff Fabry of the United States, the eventual Gold Medalist. After Norbert lost 3-7 he moved into the Bronze medal match to face Osmo Kinnunen of Finland. Norbert shot extremely well tieing only a single end to take home the bronze medal.

Jeff Fabry of the United States went on to capture the Gold defeating David Drahoninsky  of Czech Republic in the Finals 6-2.

Congratulations!!!!

Olympic Spot for Canadian Women

Marie-Pier Beaudet of Lévis, Quebec won Gold at the Continental Qualification Tournament for the Americas held on April 22nd in Medellin, Colombia and assures Canadian women a spot at the 2012 Olympics in London.

… Only three Olympic quota spots (one per country) were available in the individual event category at the Continental Qualification Tournament for the Americas. By virtue of Marie-Pier Beaudet’s gold medal performance, Canada was guaranteed one of the three quota spots in the individual category. Mexico and Colombia won the two remaining Olympic quota spots. A total of 64 female archers will qualify for the London Olympics….

Read the entire article on Archery Canada.

Congratulations to Marie-Pier and the entire Canadian Team.

Mission Accomplished

No one can experience things for you. They can describe them in detail, draw pictures, give you a slide show, but you need to be there to truly understand what it’s like. That describes my trip to World Indoor Archery Championships in Las Vegas, NV.

I have been back for a week now, and thought I should blog about my experience. My goals before leaving were very simple; learn and enjoy the complete experience. If all I bring back is the knowledge of what it takes to compete that the World level, I will succeed.

Well mission accomplished, I gained the experience I was looking for and I now know what it takes to compete at the international level.

Although, I really enjoyed the learning experience and met several new friends from various other countries, it was extremely nerve racking. Prior to the competition beginning, I was shooting extremely well right up to the minute the announcer came on and declared “Welcome to the World Championships” and this set the wheels in motion. I was finally here competing for my country, and the whole world is watching.

My coach, Kathy Millar, tries to prepare us for this type of thing. Every couple of weeks in class we practice with distractions however nothing can prepare you for that level of distraction with loud fans, multi-lingual teams, and the constant commentators. It started with the introductions, world champion here, junior world champion there and me. Then the distraction of the commentator constantly announcing scores and who is shooting and what they did or needed to do. He even declared the winner in our of the bronze medal match even before we shot our final arrow.

Although individually I finished tied for 17^th in the recurve junior women division; my junior women’s team set a new national record, even though we lost in the bronze medal match on the final end to the host Americans. Also congratulations to all my Canadian team members, although none of us medaled in this competition, we all preformed well and showed the world that the Canadians can compete at any level.

My Coach Honoured

This past weekend was the Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Awards Gala, hosted by the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC), at The Fairmont Royal York hotel in Toronto. My coach, Kathy Millar of South Nation Archery was honoured as one of Canada’s top coaches and sport administrators for her coaching efforts with World Champion Archer Christopher Perkins.

The prestigious Petro-Canada Coaching Excellence Awards recognize coaches whose athletes have excelled at World Championships, Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Special Olympics World Games.

“Petro-Canada has supported the recognition of Canada’s coaches for 11 years and has recognized over 200 of Canada’s best. This year, as in years past, there is an incredible list of talented coaches that we are very proud to celebrate,” said Steven Keith, Director, Loyalty and Marketing Partnerships, Petro-Canada, a Suncor Energy business.

“The Government of Canada is pleased to support the Coaching Association of Canada and the 2011 Petro-Canada Sport Leadership sportif Conference as we recognize the critical role that sport leaders and coaches play in the development of athletes and sport inCanada,” said the Honourable Bal Gosal, Minister of State (Sport). “I commend their commitment to Canadian amateur sport and to achieving sport excellence.”

“Each one of these coaches exemplifies what the Coaching Association of Canada stands for,” stated John Bales, Chief Executive Officer for the CAC. “They are dedicated individuals that push themselves harder and harder each day by planning, researching, and actively listening so that they can be better for their athletes. We are truly proud of these award winners.”

The excerpt above is from Coach.ca.

Ms. Millar is the personal coach of Christopher Perkins (Athens, ON), who won the gold medal in the Men’s Compound Bow category at this year’s World Archery Championship.  At 19 and still a junior age athlete, Perkins was competing in his first-ever Senior World Championship. Using the momentum of his gold medal performance, Perkins and his two teammates captured the bronze medal in the Compound Bow Team event.

Ms. Millar has been personal coach to Perkins for the past five years. She is also the founder and Head Coach of the South Nation Archery Club in Winchester, Ontario.  Millar has been instrumental in the development of Perkins as an archer from the ‘Train to Shoot’ stage of Archery Canada’s Long-Term Archer Development (LTAD) model through to the ‘Shoot to Excel’ stage. “Kathleen’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 Perkins.  “I have no doubt that without Kathleen’s coaching and guidance, I wouldn’t have won the gold. I’m also sure that under Kathleen’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. Christopher is a tremendous young man and athlete with lots of potential”, said Millar.  “My sincere thanks and appreciation to those that nominated me, the CAC and Petro-Canada.”

The excerpt above is from Archery Canada.

Kathy Millar truly exemplifies what it means to be a true top coach and in my opinion, no one I know deserves the recognition more. Congratulations!

Congratulations Team Canada

This past week the World Youth Championships were held in Legnica, Poland.  Canada was able to send at team of eighteen athletes to compete in all events. All the athletes faired very well however none were able to reach the finals in any event with the exception of one, the men Junior Compound team.

The team’s climb towards the gold medal match was amazing. Their matches lending up to the gold medal match were well shot matches having won against; Greece (218 – 223), Denmark (225 – 232), and USA (223 -227) including a new world record for 24 arrows with 232 against Denmark.

Canada showed ultimate sportsmanship for the gold medal match. With one of the Netherlands athletes requiring medical attention before the match and needing to go to the local hospital for minor injury, Canada agreed to delay the match until the entire Netherlands was able to compete.  Once the match was able to continue it was a very close match since the teams entered match play ranked first (Netherlands) and second (Canada) with the final resulting in a 222 to 220.

The final placing was Canada with the gold, Netherland with the sliver and the USA with the bronze. Congratulations to the Junior Compound Men Team members Keenan Brown, Michael Kupchanko and Christopher Perkins for their amazing victory.

Read more on the FITA Archery site here.