Held on Sunday, June 24, Archery Guyana’s annual competition to commemorate Olympic Day saw 12 members contesting the gold, silver and bronze medals at the National Gymnasium, due to the kind courtesy of the National Sports Commission.
Although it got off to a late start, archers were none the less very excited to be part of Archery Guyana’s Olympic Day Event. With all World Archery rules of competition and safety in place, Director of Shooting Frederick Ewing-Chow blew the first whistle to commence the afternoon’s Competition.
In the Senior Women’s Class, 4 ladies competed. They were Shereeda Yusuf, Samira Duncan, Narda Mohamed and Vidushi Persaud-McKinnon. While in the Junior Class, Jessica Callender was the lone competitor.
Action began with the females starting off the competition with a qualifying round, each shooting 5 ends of 3 arrows each (a total of 15 arrows) to qualify for the final round. The 3 ladies to make it to the final round were Narda Mohamed-46 points, Samira Duncan-53 points and Shereeda Yusuf-10points. This final round was hotly contested by the ladies resulting in a tie between Narda Mohamed and Samira Duncan which provided some extra excitement with a shoot-off of 1 end of 3 arrows each.
The winner of the shoot-off, and gold medal winner was Mohamed with 16 points, while Duncan got the Silver with 6 points. The Bronze went to Yusuf.
The Junior Class saw lone competitor Jessica Callender taking away the Gold.
In the Senior Men’s Class there were 7 competitors. Antiono Hackette, Colin Loncke, Robert Singh, Ryan McKinnon, Anand Mangra, Umasankar Madray and Nicholas Hing shooting the same 5-end qualifying round.
The first four to the targets were Anand Mangra, Robert Singh, Ryan McKinnon and Antonio Hackette, while the other three men were Colin Loncke, Nicholas Hing and Umasankar Madray. There was heated competition during the first round with the results of the final three men showing McKinnon who gained 106 points ahead of Mangra’s 95, followed by Hing’s 88 points.
The final 3-end round saw action with McKinnon, Mangra and Hing contesting the coveted Gold medal ending with Mangra taking away Gold with 83 points ahead of McKinnon’s 72 for Silver, and leaving Hing behind with 65 for Bronze. The only x(10) points of the Finals were shot by McKinnon & Mangra, while Hing shot an x in qualification round.
After the competition wheelchair-bound potential Paralympic archer Uttamkumar Isurdeen who met with many of the Archery Guyana coaches and members was given instruction on the use of the Olympic recurve bow, which he is very excited and enthusiastic about learning and taking up as a sport.
Persons interested in becoming involved in the Olympic sport of Archery can email archeryguyana@gmail.com
In photos below:
The Male finalists from left: Nicholas Hing, Anand Mangra and Ryan McKinnon
2018 Participants:
2018 Prize Winners: