Like many other sport disciplines, Archery Guyana took the time out over the past weekend to commemorate Olympic Day. In their celebration, the local archers took to the National Gymnasium to compete for medal prizes which were donated by the National Sports Commission (NSC).
Despite getting off to a late start, the local archers, many of whom recently received their Level 1 certificate, were pumped and ready to showcase their ever improving skills. Operating under World Archery rules, the competition kicked off with the blow of the whistle by Director of Shooting Frederick Ewing-Chow.
In the Senior Women’s Class, four ladies competed. They were Shereeda Yusuf, Samira Duncan, Narda Mohamed and Vidushi Persaud-McKinnon. While in the Junior Class, Jessica Callender was the lone competitor.
Action began with the females starting off the competition with a qualifying round, each shooting five ends of three arrows each (a total of 15 arrows) to qualify for the final round. The three ladies to make it to the final round were Narda Mohamed – 46 points; Samira Duncan – 53 points; and Shereeda Yusuf – 10 points. This final round was hotly contested by the ladies resulting in a tie between Narda Mohamed and Samira Duncan which provided some extra excitement with a shoot-off of one end of three arrows each.
The winner of the shoot-off, and gold medal winner was Mohamed with 16 points, while Duncan got the Silver with six points. The Bronze went to Yusuf. The Junior Class saw lone competitor Jessica Callender taking away the Gold.
In the Senior Men’s Class there were seven competitors. Antiono Hackette, Colin Loncke, Robert Singh, Ryan McKinnon, Anand Mangra, Umasankar Madray and Nicholas Hing shooting the same five-end qualifying round.
The first four to the targets were Anand Mangra, Robert Singh, Ryan McKinnon and Antonio Hackette, while the other three men were Colin Loncke, Nicholas Hing and Umasankar Madray. There was heated competition during the first round with the results of the final three men showing McKinnon who gained 106 points ahead of Mangra’s 95, followed by Hing’s 88 points.
The final three-end round saw action with McKinnon, Mangra and Hing contesting the coveted Gold medal ending with Mangra taking away Gold with 83 points ahead of McKinnon’s 72 for Silver, and leaving Hing behind with 65 for Bronze. The only X (10) points of the finals were shot by McKinnon and Mangra, while Hing shot an X in qualification round.
In an act of benevolence and support, wheelchair-bound potential Paralympic archer Uttamkumar Isurdeen – who met with many of the Archery Guyana coaches and members on Sunday – was afforded the opportunity to try out the Olympic recurve bow under proper instruction. Isurdeen was very enthusiastic about this opportunity and is eager to take up archery as a sport. Persons who are interested in becoming involved in the Olympic sport of Archery can email [email protected].
