Eleven individual places were awarded at the Pan American Championship in Santiago de Chile; Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, U.S. Virgin Islands, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela earned these spots.
In total, four places in recurve men, four places in recurve women, two places in compound women and a single place in compound men were available in the qualifying round for the Pan American Games.
Nicholas D’Amour won a bronze medal and Tatyana Muntyan finished in 5th place in the Pan American Games Qualifier, earning two individual spots for the Virgin Islands in the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, Oct./Nov. 2023. These are the first spots ever earned for the Virgin Islands in the sport of Archery for the Pan Am Games.
Recurve Men
In the quarterfinals of the recurve men’s event, Javier Vega and Hugo Franco, both from Cuba, secured a ticket for their nation. The match was decided in a shoot-off. Javier Vega won the match 5-4 with a 10 on his tiebreaker arrow.
Puerto Rico also secured a spot by having two archers facing each other in the quarterfinals. Adrian Munoz won the match against teammate Carlos Acevedo 7-3.
Third place went to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Nicholas D’Amour, who won 6-0 against Cameron Pickering (Bermuda). The last recurve place went to Argentina. Mario Damian Jajarabilla beat Oscar Ticas (El Salvador) 6-2.
Recurve Women
Cuba was the first country to secure a place with two archers winning their quarterfinal matches. Elizabeth Rodriguez defeated Camila Perez (Dominican Republic) 6-0. Maydenia Sarduy won against Alondra Rivera (Puerto Rico) 6-4.
The second country to secure a place was Peru. Gianella Hermoza defeated Amanda Kendal-Brown (Trinidad and Tobago) 7-3.
Venezuela’s Daniela Chacon also secured a berth for her country with a 6-4 win over Tatyana Muntyan of the U.S. Virgin Islands. But Tatyana earned a berth by placing 5th in this round of matches.
Team Virgin Islands took eight archers to the Pan American Championships this week in Santiago, Chile, in hopes of winning team positions at the Pan American Games. They fell short of earning either a men’s or women’s team spot. The Virgin Islands will, however, have a mixed team at the Pan American Games.
Before securing a spot at the Pan Am Games in Men’s recurve, Nicholas D’Amour led the team with a 6th place individual finish in the Pan American Championships. The men’s team finished tied for 9th; after a bye in the first round, they lost a strong Columbian team 5-1 in the second round. The men’s team was made up of Bruce Arnold, Nicholas D’Amour and Mike Gerard.
For the women, Tatyana Muntyan was the best finisher tying for 17th place. The women’s team finished tied for 9th place, losing to the Brazilian team that finished 4th overall. The women’s team had the two George sisters, Goddess and Ford, and was anchored by Tatyana Muntyan.
In the largest field ever assembled at the Pan American Championships, Nicholas qualified 4th overall with a score of 677, finishing behind Matias Grande of Mexico (682), Jorge Enriquez of Colombia (679) and Hugo Franco of Cuba (677). In qualifications, Mike Gerard shot a 595 and Bruce Arnold a 521. Also competing for the men’s team was Eloi George. Mike and Bruce tied for 33rd and Eloi tied for 57th.
In qualifications, Tatyana Muntyan shot a 572 and Anne Abernathy 512, with Ford and Goddess George continuing to improve their scores. Tatyana finished tied for 17th, Anne and Goddess tried for 33rd and Ford tied for 57th.
The Pan American Championships pulled together archers from North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. This event provided the largest number of spots available to be earned for the 2023 Pan and Parapan Am Games. Those Games will then serve as an important qualifier for the Olympics and Paralympics in Paris in 2024.
In this Pan American Games Qualifier, there were 18 places in recurve men and 18 in recurve women. The team spots have been decided, for the men – Columbia, Mexico, USA, Canada and Brazil and for the women – Mexico, USA, Canada, Brazil and Colombia.
The Pan American Games is the most important multi-sport event in the Americas. It is held every four years and will serve as a qualifier for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The best athletes from all over the continent will compete in 38 sports and one of them is archery.
In archery, a total of 98 athletes, equally distributed between men and women, will compete in this discipline. For recurve bow there are 33 places and for compound bow 16, both men and women.
