OTTAWA – Archery Canada is pleased to announce Shawn Riggs as its new full-time national coach to lead the Recurve program into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and beyond. Riggs brings with him coaching experience leading multiple international competitions, including as head coach for the 2015 Pan Am Games, 2015 World Championships and multiple World Cups over the past 4 years.

Riggs will step into his new role as National Coach immediately with the World Youth Championship starting in Argentina on October 2, followed by the World Championships in Mexico two weeks later. Most recently, Riggs was the head coach for Crispin Duenas at the 2017 World Cup in Berlin, where Duenas finished on the podium with a bronze medal.

As a member of the technical leadership team, Riggs has provided significant leadership to the high performance program during the past three years as Archery Canada continues to transform its system with the objective to deliver sustainable podium success over the long term. “Shawn is the perfect choice to take over the role of National Coach for our Recurve program. He has demonstrated all the attributes that make today’s top national coaches successful, and he is committed to continuous learning to ensure our athletes receive the best technical coaching and leverage the newest concepts from the sport science domain” stated Alan Brahmst, Archery Canada’s High Performance Advisor, who added, “we have the right leader stepping in, early in the quadrennial, to lead our programming and athletes.”

At the same time, Archery Canada is announcing former National Coach and 6-time Olympic coach Joan McDonald as System Pathway Coach.  This move will strengthen Archery Canada’ focus on the Next Generation strategy, which recently received a significant funding injection from Sport Canada, Own the Podium, and the Canadian Olympic Committee. McDonald will work closely with Riggs in her important supporting role to execute our Next Generation strategy. With a focus on technical coaching and developing younger Canadian archers for international success, McDonald will also help to lead an integration of multiple initiatives that will shape our approach in this critical program. “With her vast experience and proven success in technical coaching, I am very happy Joan has agreed to take on this very important role. She truly is a world-class coach and we feel that this role plays to her strengths and will benefit those archers identified to be part of our Next Generation program”.

As part of this announcement, Riggs suggested that “these are exciting times for Recurve Archery in Canada and our focus on winning at the international level has never had so much support. We are in a unique position where we can build off of strong experience, new talent and good performances, while at the same time leveraging new approaches and an increased capacity to develop for the future.”
McDonald added that “I am looking forward to working with the current group of young archers and coaches that have been developed in conjunction with the TOP program. This is an exciting new opportunity for archery in Canada, as well as for me, to help develop the champions of the future.”

Archery Canada’s Next Generation Recurve program focuses on athletes who demonstrate evidence of podium success with a 5 – 8 year timeline. The program will begin to operate in close alignment with the TOP program, which was launched in 2016. As the key pathway entry point, TOP serves to identify and develop athletes who want to represent Canada in international competition. An update to the Recurve athlete pathway will be communicated later in 2017 which will be in alignment with Archery Canada’s Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD).

For additional information, contact Mary MacDonald or visit www.archerycanada.ca

About Archery Canada
Archery Canada is the National Sport Organization responsible for the promotion and development of the timeless sport of archery in a safe and ethical manner. Archery Canada supports the achievement of high performance excellence in archery in all categories and the development of a national archery infrastructure to promote archery participation across Canada in cooperation with the Provincial/Territorial Archery Associations.