Archery Guyana’s Seven Seas 2021 National Outdoor Competition: Nail-biting thrills in men’s category, rookie ladies grab medals

It was a fine day for shooting on Sunday last at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence where Archery Guyana ran off their 2021 National Outdoor Championships sponsored by Seven Seas.

The competition commenced a few weeks ago at the same venue, but owing to very heavy rains, it was postponed. This gave athletes the opportunity for some extra training, and saw several new entries into the Women’s Recurve and Barebow divisions, as well as the Men’s Barebow division, thereby adding to the competitive spirit.

Once the 30-metre field of play was set up by the Competitions Committee under the inspection of the Chairman of Judges, Mohamed Gamal Khan and the Director of Shooting, Ryan McKinnon, the athletes were given time to get some practice shots and get sighted-in on the targets before the start of the competition.

Director of Sport, Steve Ninvalle was on hand to deliver the feature remarks at the opening ceremony, in which he promised support for the sport of archery and wished the archers good luck in the competition. The vote of thanks was delivered by Archery Guyana’s President Mohamed Khan and the Competition was declared open.
Action got underway with the Women’s Recurve qualification match which saw Theresa Jaikishun emerge in the top spot followed by Shereeda Yusuf, Roshini Boodhoo, Vidushi Persaud-McKinnon and Elizabeth Mason, and Men’s Barebow qualification match with Jeewanram Persaud topping the rankings followed by Nicholas Hing, Kenrick Cheeks, Robert Singh, Fabian Ramdatt and Saeed Karim. The ranking rounds continued with the Women’s Barebow and Men’s Recurve as the ladies fought hard for the top spots in the barebow division. Jaikishun topped the rankings again followed by Boodhoo and Mason. In match-play, Jaikishun advanced to the finals as Mason and Boodhoo battled it out to challenge her for the gold. Boodhoo knocked out Mason to advance, but Jaikishun took home the gold. Boodhoo and Mason took silver and bronze respectively.
In the match-play of the Women’s Recurve, Yusuf came up against Persaud-McKinnon and Boodhoo against Mason as Jaikishun advanced to the final. Yusuf and Boodhoo emerged the winners with their 6 set points each and then had to go up against each other in the semi-final. Yusuf beat Boodhoo to advance to the final against Jaikishun, who emerged victorious.
Match-play in the Men’s Barebow division saw Persaud and Hing advancing to the semis as Ramdatt went up against Cheeks, and Singh went up against Karim in the quarter-finals. Cheeks was knocked out by Ramdatt as was Karim by Singh, and the winners advanced to the semi-finals. Persaud beat Ramdatt and Singh beat Hing to advance to the final, and Hing went up against Ramdatt for bronze while Persaud took the gold and Singh the silver.
In the Men’s Recurve division, the top-ranked qualifiers Persaud, Umasankar Madray, Singh and Ramdatt battled it out in the gold, silver and bronze medal match play. In the match between Singh and Persaud, both archers were evenly matched in set points and went into a shoot-off, and Singh was adjudged the winner with his arrow closest to centre in the target. This gave Persaud the bronze, as Ramdatt was beaten out by Madray.
The gold medal match resulted in Madray beating out Singh for the gold.
There was also a separate target set up off the side of the field of play for spectators and members of the public to experience the sport of archery. It was encouraging to see Vice President Anand Raghunauth lead a number of the Guyana Chess Federation members together with family members to enjoy some target practice.
The competition concluded with the medal ceremony presided over by the Chairman of Judges and Director of Shooting. Seven Seas representative Stacy Sam was present to also award special prizes of its products to the winners.
The official results were as follows:
Women’s Barebow
Theresa Jaikishun – 1st
Roshini Boodhoo – 2nd
Elizabeth Mason – 3rd
Women’s Recurve
Theresa Jaikishun – 1st
Shereeda Yusuf – 2nd
Roshini Boodhoo – 3rd
Men’s Barebow
Jeewanram Persaud – 1st
Robert Singh – 2nd
Nicholas Hing – 3rd
Men’s Recurve
Umasankar Madray – 1st
Robert Singh – 2nd
Jeewanram Persaud – 3rd
Archery Guyana wished to express its gratitude to Seven Seas for its continued collaboration as a competition sponsor. Special thanks were extended to the management of Massy Distribution (Guyana) Inc, Seven Seas and Oasis Water sponsor, Guyana Beverages Inc and its management as the organisation moves forward to promote the sport of archery in Guyana.
The Board of Directors also wished to extend thanks to the Culture, Youth and Sport Minister, Charles Ramson Jr and the General Manager of the National Stadium, Azad Ibrahim for making the venue available, and looked forward to future events – local, regional and international – being hosted on the grounds.