CAMBRIDGE, ON – Archery Canada hosted the first para training camp in nearly two years last week, in part thanks to an ongoing partnership with the City of Cambridge, ON. The camp was held as one of the preparation camps in advance of the 2022 World Archery Para Championships, which will be held in Dubai, UAE next February. The program leadership was excited to evaluate the group after two years of training locally and virtually, as well as to welcome 4 new para-athletes since the beginning of the pandemic. The group of attendees were rounded out by 2 returning athletes:

New athletes:

• Carolyn Lindner (MB)
• Chris Waterman (MB)
• Mark Ideson (ON)
• Steve Murgatroyd (NS)

Returning athletes:

• Kevin Evans (BC)
• Kyle Tremblay (ON)

The camp was hosted in the Com Dev Indoor Soccer Park, which has been an important partnership development over the past year. There was a strong support team in attendance at the camp, including national and development program athletes, Stephanie Barrett, Ben Lee, Emilio Verdugo Paredes, and Janna Hawash. The camp benefitted from the rules expertise of Randall Jones, who acted as the official judge on site. Duncan Crawford, Archery Canada Paralympic Head Coach, was there to provide guidance with support of national recurve coaches, Shawn Riggs and Dr. Soha Mahmoud. Alec Denys, Archery Canada High Performance Chair and retired national Paralympic athlete, provided additional mentorship.

“This camp was long overdue and we’re very grateful to all the stakeholders for making this happen,” says Crawford after the event. “It was an excellent opportunity to get the squad together. We used our time to create baseline evaluations, technical inventory, review IST processes, and of course play some archery! We had Joe Leszner come in and speak to the group about mental performance planning, and veteran Paralympic Alec Denys briefed the group on pre-competition performance planning. This event gave us the chance to have in person conversations and map out the year ahead with our senior and development athletes. With our next camp happening in January (Winnipeg) and potentially Para Worlds in February (Dubai), we are moving quickly to advance the goals of the National Para squad.”