Canada on the Podium in the Czech Republic

Canada’s para-archery team won three medals at the 2013 Czech Target international para-archery tournament in Nove Mesto nad Metuji, Czech Republic. This year’s team consisting of Alec Denys of Warsaw, ON, Kevin Evans of Jaffray, BC, Bob Hudson of Leoville, SK, Norbert Murphy of Vaudreuil-Dorion, QC and Karen Van Nest of Wiarton, ON had a terrific finish capturing two gold and a silver.

First, Norbert Murphy, Canada’s 2012 Para-Olympian bronze medalist, captured gold in the Compound Bow Men’s ARW1 category after defeating Peter Kinik of Slovakia in a one-shot tie-breaker.

Second Karen Van Nest captured the silver in Compound Bow Class Open Women losing to number one ranked Stepanida Artakhinova of Russia.

However, Karen Van Nest teamed up with Kevin Evans to turn the tables and capture the Gold in the Compound Mixed Team by defeating number one ranked Mikhail Ivanov and Stepanida Artakhinova of Russia.

Congratulations to the whole team on a very successful trip to CzechRepublic.

Bronze for Canadian’s Mixed Team

Canada captured the compound mixed team bronze medal at FITA World Cup in Turkey in June. After finishing 15^th in the qualifying round the team of Dietmar Trillus of Ontario and Ashley Wallace of Alberta had an uphill battle, first facing the second ranked Korean team. After defeating Korea 151-148, they faced seventh ranked Mexico narrowly winning 151-150 to face third ranked India.

After losing 154-147, Canada faced Amir KAZEMPOOR  and Mino ABEDI of Iran who were ranked fourth after the qualifiers.  With winds causing arrows to drift to the left, Iran posted two 7s in the first end, allowing Canada to take an early lead, 36-33 and to eventually go on to capture the bronze with a score of 150-141

Sergio PAGNI and Marcella TONIOLI of eighth ranked Italy captured the Gold medal defeating India in the Gold Medal match.

Congratulations!!!

2013 MICA

Every year, COPARCO the pan-American archery organization, hosts a mail-in tournament called 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.

On May 13 they officially announced that my sister Sydney, our great friend Lindsay Fulmerton and myself once again captured gold for the Multi-Indoor Championships of America Junior female team. This will be my third gold in the team event since my coach, my good friend Nancy Chalut and I were also very lucky to captured gold to in the senior division in 2011.

If you love indoor archery and would like to participate in the 2014 Multi-Indoor Championships of the Americas, contact you local club or archery organization for a host club near you.

Archery is not all about Winning

Sport should be about participation and physical fitness, not solely about winning. Archery is a sport you can participate in for your entire life. One of the things my coach always told me was there is a real danger of achieving success too earlier in young archers. Young kids sometimes get use to winning, and they start to expect it. They never expect to have to work at it again to win and archery (and sport in general) loses more participants that way than any other.

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As a national level athlete, everyone expects me to win all the time. I sometimes want to yell out “It just doesn’t work that way”. There is very little difference between top level athletes and it is more than a game of inches. As you develop into one of those athletes that are lucky enough to gain sponsorship, there is even more pressure to win. This is why I believe some athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs or cheating.

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The movie “Cool Runnings” has an excellent scene where Derice Bannock ask Irv why he cheated…

Irv: It’s a fair question. It’s quite simple, really. I had to win. You see, Derice, I had made winning my whole life, and when you make winning your whole life, you have to keep on winning, no matter what. Understand?

Derice Bannock: No, I don’t understand. You won two gold medals. You had it all.

Irv: Derice, a gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.

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Personally, it really troubles me to hear about athletes that use performance enhancing drugs or cheat, especially successful ones. They have made winning their whole life and they are not enough without it.

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As part of your New Year’s Resolution, why not make sure you are participating in Archery or any other sport for the right reasons. Whether your are participating for the competition, hunting, social aspect, physical fitness or just for pure fun, make sure you set your goals to participate whether you win or not.

Olympic Gold for Jin Hyek OH

Jin Hyek OH of South Korea captured the men’s individual gold medal today after defeating Takaharu FURUKAWA of Japan 7-1. Jin Hyek OH adds the gold medal to the bronze the men’s team won earlier in the week.

In the Bronze medal match, Xiaoxiang DAI of China forced a shoot off against Rick van der VEN of the Netherlands after trailing 4-0. Rick van der VEN earlier in the day defeated number one seed and world record holder Im Dong-hyun of South Korea. In the single shot playoff, Xiaoxiang DAI captured the bronze with a perfect 10.

Read More : http://www.ctpost.com/sports/article/Oh-gives-South-Korea-another-archery-gold-3760188.php

South Korea, Mexico and Mexico

Top-seeded Bo Bae KI of South Korea captured her second Gold of these 2012 Olympics in the Women’s Indivdual Recurve today. Mexico’s Aida ROMAN and Mariana AVITIA captured the Silver and Bronze respectively.

The gold medal match was a seesaw battle that saw Bo Bae KI narrowly beat Aida Roman in a shoot-off.

Read More about here : http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/archery/korea/olympics/result/result-ki-grabs-gold-in-archery-final_37821.html

South Korea – 2012 Women’s Team Olympic Gold

In a rematch of the 2008 Beijing Games, South Korea edges China to capture the country’s seventh consecutive women’s team gold medal.

Read more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18904388

Italy – 2012 Men’s Team Olympic Gold

Michele Frangilli shot a bull’s-eye with the final arrow, giving his Italian team a one-point win over the United States in the gold medal match of the men’s archery team competition.

Italy earned its first gold medal in the event with the 219-218 decision, having taken silver behind South Korea in 2000 and ’08. The U.S. knocked off the heavily favored Koreans in the semifinals.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/07/28/italy-edges-us-men-for-archery-gold-on-final-arrow/?test=olymp#ixzz21wjI6OFd

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.

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.