SANTIAGO, CL – Day 2 of the Pan and Parapan Am Championships concluded today, following the completion of the para qualification rounds and several matches on the able-bodied side. The weather conditions were similar to yesterday: hot with lots of wind.

All of the Canadian para archers competed in the compound men’s open division. Rob Cox was the highest-qualifying Canadian archer in the competition, taking the 14th spot with a score of 643 over 72 arrows. Kevin Evans shot a 633 and earned himself the 16th spot; Chris Waterman totaled 632 points in the 720 round, which resulted in him landing right behind Evans in the 17th place. Based on the results from the qualification round, Waterman and Evans were opponents for their first match. Waterman was able to hold onto the lead for the match and won in the end; the score was 127-120. He then moves on to shoot against Cristian David Correa Alvaran of Colombia in the ⅛ elimination round on Friday. Cox shot his first match against Venezuelan Edixon Alexander Parada Aponte, and even though he was behind in the first two ends, he did eventually earn the win (134-131). His next match, taking place on Friday, will be against Brazilian Reinaldo Vagner Charao Ferreira.

Evans and Cox qualified in 5th place in the compound men’s open doubles, combining their scores to total 638. They move on to their first elimination round on Thursday at 8:55 a.m. local time (6:55 a.m. EST).

For the only Canadian barebow match of the day, Angela Foley shot against Nicole Tolmo of Chile to decide who would advance to shoot more elimination matches. Foley ended up walking away with the win with a score of 6-2. This means that she advances to shoot against the top-ranked archer in this division, American Christina Lyons. This match will be taking place Thursday morning at 9:50 a.m. local time (7:50 a.m. EST). 

When asked how it felt that she had secured a spot to shoot on Thursday, Foley commented that she knew she had it in her. “It’s overwhelming,” Foley continued when asked about being at her first international competition of this magnitude, “but I’m trying to soak it all in. Chile is great.”

In the able-bodied recurve competition, the Canadian men’s team made up of Eric Peters, Brian Maxwell, and Devaang Gupta, faced off against Peru for their first match of the day. The teams tied the first two ends, making the score 2-2 halfway through. The Canadian men then won the next two ends decisively, earning them the match with a score of 6-2. The three men then went on to shoot against the Chilean team. The match was incredibly close, with each team taking one end initially. They then tied the last two, bringing the score to 4-4. In a tiebreaker, the Canadians only lost by one point, 27-28. This result, although it doesn’t allow them to advance, does mean that they have earned a quota for the Pan American Games next year, also taking place in Santiago. 

“It’s good that we secured the quota for the Pan Am Games but still a little disappointing with the loss against Chile,” comments Gupta when asked about how he felt the matches went. “It would’ve been nice to be in medal matches, but I’m hoping to come back in the Pan Am Games and win gold. I shot close to what I’ve been shooting at home, so I’m happy with it overall. The goal for tomorrow is to shoot some good individual matches and make it to the individual gold medal matches on Friday.”

Peters expressed a lot of the same sentiments as his teammate, saying he “was just happy to secure the quota. It hurts to not shoot in medal matches at the Pan Am Championships; but, we came here to do a job and we did that job, so I can’t be that upset with it.” He continued on to express that he was looking forward to continue having fun during the rest of the competition, especially after securing the quota.

“It feels really good,” added Maxwell. “The best thing we did here is that we made every arrow count and that was what you had to do to get those spots here. Very proud of the fact that we gave it our all on each shot and that every shot counted. Individually, you always want to go further. You win and lose as a team. You can’t beat yourself up too much, just knowing that we made our biggest goal here, we checked a big one off the list. Now, we’re heading into the individual rounds and the tournament isn’t done yet. We’ll keep on pushing, keep on going, and use what we learned here to improve ourselves and bring it to the next match.”

The women’s recurve team kicked off their days with their match against the team from Panama, winning it decisively with a score of 6-0 and by at least 9 points each end. That meant that they were slated to shoot versus Colombia, who were ranked just behind them in the qualification round. They were then able to win the match with a score of 5-3, which meant they both advanced to the semifinals and earned Canada a women’s recurve team quota spot in the Pan Am Games next year. In the semifinals, they faced off against the American team. Unfortunately, they dropped the match 6-0 and moved onto the bronze medal match against Brazil. They were able to focus on the new goal and successfully won the match after a tiebreaker, winning 5-4. This is the first Canadian medal of the Pan Am Championships.

“It was a tricky day,” Barrett commented after the medal match. “We came out with a strong understanding of the field from yesterday and just putting the foot on the floor, we drove it home.” When asked what she was thinking during the bronze medal match, she added “I had some phrases in my head, ‘this is easy’, ‘I’ve done the work’, ‘we’ll just put it in the middle’.”

“We kept focus and I think we worked really hard as a team,” adds Chénier. “It’s very exciting to win a medal, it’s always exciting. We had a bit of an up and down. We put ourselves up there with the top countries in the Americas, so that’s exciting. For me, because I was the last one shooting, I saw a shadow in the middle and told myself ‘follow that shadow’ and it worked out.”

Another group to take to the shooting line was the men’s compound team, the first Canadian match was against Ecuador. The score was 227-220 in favour of Canada, which meant that they moved on to face El Salvador. They then unfortunately lost the match to the Central American country by a score of 228-230, but then went into a shoot-off versus Puerto Rico to determine if they would fill the final quota spot for the compound men’s team in the 2023 Pan Am Games. They earned Canada a quota spot after winning the shoot-off.

For all the scores so far, click here: https://info.ianseo.net/ 

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For more information, please contact:

Zoe Meil, Communications & Safe Sport Coordinator

zmeil@archerycanada.ca

(613) 260-2113 ext. 3