After an evening session at the National Gymnasium with local archers on Thursday, World Archery Barbados level two coach, Dwayne Grovesnor said he was very impressed with the rapid growth of the athletes.
Grovesnor who was in Guyana in a personal capacity took up an invitation from the local body, World Archery Guyana for the indoor session and was confronted with eager members and a handful of new comers.
Top archers of the night strike a pose with Dwayne Grovesnor (centre) from left; Samira Duncan, Anand Mangra, Narda Mohammed, Amanda Arjune, Randy Arjune
During the approximately two-hour long interactive session, the local archers were “brought up to speed of what to expect in competition archery,” Grovesnor told Guyana Times Sport.
They willing bunch of both male and female archers were asked to shoot from various distances with different scenarios given by the coach. He was also seen advising the archers to make adjustments with the way they approach the line to taking aim and even after shooting. Grovesnor was also heard encouraging the archers to be cognizant of the time which is allotted while at the mark.
“They know how to shoot but today [Thursday] we looked at what to do, what not to do, the rules and everything they need to know about how competitions work so that when they get to that stage, they will know exactly what to do,” the Guyanese-born international archer explained.
Archery Guyana, which is a relatively young association was given a major boost of confidence from Grovesnor who said that “from the last time I was here to now, there is a major improvement and give them another few months they will be very ready for competitions.”
After the formal coaching, the archers broke up into mixed pairs and had two rounds of “real” competition. The pair of Anand Mangra and Amanda Arjune shot to the front of the pack with Arjune miles ahead as the best archer of the night.
One of the newcomers of the evening was 11-year old Dimetri Roopnauth who wants to follow his passion of shooting his way to a professional archer but acknowledges he will have to practice a lot.
At the end of the session, Grovesnor told the archers that the recipe to success is simply down to lots of practice.
