Medellin, COL (April 9, 2024) – It was an all-Canadian gold medal match at the 2024 Continental Qualifiers for the Americas in Medellin, Colombia on Tuesday that saw Kristine Esebua of Toronto, ON triumph over Virginie Chenier of Laval, QC, to win gold. With two quota spots in women’s individual recurve for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on the line, one per country, Canada secured their spot with their qualification for the semifinals against two athletes from Puerto Rico.

With the men’s individual quota spot, earned by Eric Peters of Kitchener, ON at the 2023 World Championships last fall, Canada will also now compete in the mixed team event in Paris.

Esebua, a four-time Olympian for Georgia who immigrated to Canada in 2019 who will unfortunately not be eligible to compete in Paris, took the win by a final score of 6-4 over Chenier after dominating throughout the competition. Stephanie Barrett of Mississauga, ON also advanced to the finals but was eliminated by Nilka Cotta of Puerto Rico in the quarterfinals. Cotta was defeated by her teammate, Alondra Rivera in the bronze medal match.

“As soon as we secured the spot, the goal was to make a Canadian final. We wanted to win the thing,” said Ron Van der Hoff, National Team Advisor for Archery Canada. “The women competed to what they could. The ranking round was good, they performed what they were capable of performing. The girls now need to accumulate points to earn the spot and I don’t know who will win that yet.”

All three women will now compete in the Pan American Championships, also being held in Medellin, in an attempt to earn a women’s team quota spot for Paris in recurve. Canada’s men’s team of Crispin Duenas (ON), Peters (ON), Deevang Gupta (ON), and Reece Wilson-Poyton (ON) will also be looking to secure a team quota spot. The highest finishing team at that event, that hasn’t already qualified for Paris, will earn the quota spot for the Americas.

For results from the Continental Qualifier, click here.

For results from the Pan American Championships, click here.

For more information on the qualification system for Paris 2024 for archery, click here.

For more information on the Archery Canada internal nomination procedure for Paris 2024, click here.

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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.

For more information, please contact:

Karl Balisch

Executive Director

Archery Canada

kbalisch@archerycanada.com