A welcome in Canada: Flying solo for Jamaica at the Youth Championships

Major events like the Winnipeg 2025 World Archery Youth Championships bring some nations to the global archery community that we don’t see so often on the international stage, and with almost 600 archers arriving from all over the world, there’s some stories to tell. 

The sole representative of Jamaica here in Winnipeg is Isabel Angelina Chin, aged just 13. The Caribbean nation is of course best known for its global sporting achievements in track and field, and archery is only a small – but growing – sport in the country. 

“I started in high school,” said Isabel. “I stayed at 10 metres for a while, like five months, then I moved up and competed in the Caribbean Developmental Championships, and that was a really great experience for me.”

“Who do I look up to? I really like the Mexican archers, especially Alejandra Valencia.”

With under-18 women competing at 60 metres in the youth championships, Chin built up her training to be here and shoot at the distance.

“My bow poundage was only 18 pounds a couple of months ago. I had to go up by 10 pounds in the last couple of months. We train in long grass. I endured a lot of mosquito bites.”

It was still a big leap to shoot in one of the biggest international competitions of all. 

“I didn’t really believe it until I crossed the Canadian border. I’ve never seen so many people in one place before. I was really scared when I first walked in. Especially at the hotel because the Canadian team was just coming in too. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s a lot of people and I’m just here alone!‘ said Isabel.

“But on my first day of practice I met a guy from Great Britain who was really nice and we traded pins. It’s not nearly as scary as I thought it was. There’s something that’s so beautiful about the archery community is that everyone’s really warm and welcoming.”

Jamaica has competed many times in continental archery championships, including last year’s 2024 Pan American Championships – although we have yet to see a Jamaican archer shoot at an Olympics.

“I really want to meet a bunch of people and I want to make sure that I make you know that Jamaica is not just track and field – and I could never run, so I'm hoping that I’m doing great for my country and they’re proud of me.”

Chin’s mother Shalane Lee-Chin is here as team manager – but not coach. 

“Her coach could not make it and I literally just stepped in as team manager. I do video for her and send back to the coaches in order for them to make the adjustments,” explained Shalene. 

“Isabel is at a high school where you only have ‘A’ students, but physical education was giving her a hard time. She would get a B or a A minus, and they would call her not being an athlete. It felt like half of her was missing, the confidence was lacking, but with archery it was like ‘game on’ – full on confidence. She felt like she was now a part of a community.”

“We’re from a small island, we’ve never seen anything on this level, so it’s hard for the athlete to visualise when not being exposed to certain things.”

“I just wanted to just open her mind to let her know that the world is her oyster and that this is the perfect environment to show her what can happen in her career.”

For Jamaica, it’s been quite the journey – in the literal sense, via plane and train into Canada.

Isabel and Shalane, along with a large number of athletes, managed to arrive in time for the delayed official practice on Tuesday. But many international teams are still delayed ahead of qualification on Wednesday because of industrial action at Air Canada. 

“We have some teams that are just arriving today, and today was supposed to be official practice,” said Kelly Taylor, head of the local organising committee. “We also have some teams that aren’t arriving until tomorrow.”

“We’ve had a team that took the bus in from Vancouver. We had a team that drove rental cars from Toronto. We’ve had teams chartering buses for Minneapolis to Winnipeg just to get around the strike. It’s important to World Archery, and it’s important to us, that every athlete is able to make it here.”

“Some of the team members have said they found everyone they’ve dealt with in Winnipeg has been incredibly friendly. They felt welcomed,” added Taylor. 

Qualification at the World Archery Youth Championships now begins on Wednesday. 

Thanks to Vanessa Lee for reporting.