World Para Championships Report 1
Tournament Report World Para-Archery Championships Nymbruk Czech Republic
Greetings from Nymburk in the Czech Republic, site of the 2009 Para-Archery World Championships. This is the seventh time this event has been held, and attendance has been growing from the beginning. Canada sent our largest team ever this year. We had 4 men and 2 women qualify for the event and journey to Europe to shoot for the gold.
The weather here has been hot and humid. With temperatures in the high twenties, and even thirty, the archers have been shooting on an artificial soccer field. This gives them a fine, flat, even surface, but holds and increases the heat so that it feels like they’re shooting in an oven.
The medal matches will be held on Saturday. Once again, Kevin Evens will be shooting for the Gold Medal in the Men’s Compound Open Class. He won this the first time in Korea in 2007 at his second Championships.
Norbert Murphy will be shooting for the Bronze Medal in ARW1 on Saturday as well. This is Norbert’s seventh World Championships. That’s right he’s been to every World Championship since the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) started holding the event.
The Canadian team has been growing in numbers and quality of its archers all along, and this year was no exception. With three men in the Compound Open class, we entered the team event for the second time, narrowly missing our second advancement by one point in the second tie-breaker round against a very strong Russian team.
We are actively recruiting team members. We especially need Recurve shooters and women. To shoot in Para-Archery, an archer must have a disability and be classified by a Classifier certified to National level or above. This is easier now since Canada certified our second National Classifier at this event, so we now have one in the East and one in the West. If you know any archers with a disability, please contact one of the Classifiers through the FCA office.
This is the first World Championships since IPC turned administration of archery over to FITA. This means more complete and up to date reporting through the Para-Archery website (www.para-archery.org). For complete results and photos, visit the website.
