26 April 2010 - Officials Give South Africa the Thumbs Up

Officials Give South Africa the Thumbs Up Pretoria - 26 April 2010 Visitors from all over the African Continent gave the thumbs up to the Continental Qualifier for the Youth Olympics, which is running concurrently with the African Continental Championships and the 60th South African National Archery Championships between 24-27 April at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria, South Africa.   In an event billed to be the biggest gathering of competitive archers in the African continent, over 170 took to the line at the 60th SA National Archery Championships. Archers from as far afield as Benin, Egypt, Namibia and Mauritius are competing for medals in all recognised FITA categories.   Andrew OMALLA (Uganda), the technical delegate, gave the field the thumbs up and at the opening ceremony on 25 April and said that “we are there” and in all his years in the sport had never seen such a well organised tournament and field of this size on the African Continent.   Much excitement surrounds the archery event just under two months before the start of the World Soccer Cup, where the facilities are being shared with the Argentinean national soccer team.   History was made on the African Continent when for the first time the Open Category for para-archery was included in the line at the 60th SA National Archery (SANAA) Championships.  This follows on the hells of the decision to incorporate para-archery with FITA. Commenting on this move, the SANAA Executive Secretary said that this move was in line with the policy decision taken between FITA and the IPC and is the culmination of a planning process which started in South Africa two years ago.  Prior to the incorporation, para-archery was part of the disabled championships and fell under the SA Sport for Physically Disabled (SASPD). SANAA has a number of exciting plans for para-archery and has reached an understanding with the governing body of disabled sport in South Africa to grow this sector of the sport to the extent that it could hold national championships.   The archers in the Men’s Open Category competed alongside some 170+ archers in the National championships with Anton SWART (photo) shooting a 1253, a para-archery qualifier score.   A surprise upset in the qualification round was in the CM category, where newcomer to the sport, Kobus BARNARD, who has only been shooting for six months shot a score of 1388 in bad weather conditions, beating double 1400 archer Nico BENADE and world record holder (30m) Seppie CILLIERS.  BARNARD is the new RSA National CM Champion.   The competition continues tomorrow with the eliminations. Archers can view score updates and the photo gallery at www.sanaa.org.za   Selwyn MOSKOVITZ Edited FITA Communication