6 August 2008 - Di Buo, Williamson, Valeeva and Johnson: Most Experienced Olympic Participants in Beijing

Di Buo, Williamson, Valeeva and Johnson: Most Experienced Olympic Participants in Beijing Beijing - 6 August 2008     Ilario DI BUO (ITA)    Ilario DI BUO (ITA) is the archer present in Beijng with the greatest Olympic experience. He will compete in his sixth Olympic Games when the archery competition starts next Saturday in Beijing. His first Games were Los Angeles (1984) and he only missed Atlanta (1996) since then. His best individual performance was in Seoul (1988) where he ranked 13th and he later won a team silver in Sydney (2000).   Three archers will shoot in the Olympic Games for the fifth time: Alison WILLIAMSON (GBR), Natalia VALEEVA (ITA) and Richard JOHNSON (USA). They all started in Barcelona (1992) and have won Olympic medals: WILLIAMSON (1 bronze), VALEEVA (2 bronze) and JOHNSON (1 gold and 1 bronze).   Three participants have competed in three Olympics so far: Khatuna LORIG (now representing USA), Baljinima TSYREMPILOV (RUS) and Atlanta’s silver medallist Magnus PETERSSON (SWE).   Nine athletes have been present twice: Khatuna NARIMANIDZE (GEO), Evangelia PSARRA (GRE), Sayoko KITABATAKE (JPN), Iwona MARCINKIEWICZ (POL), Zekiye Keskin SATIR (TUR), Matthew GRAY (AUS), Nuno POMBO (POR), Bair BADENOV (RUS) and Victor WUNDERLE (USA).   Thirty-two archers have competed in the Games once before, leaving a total of 80 archers who will be Olympic participants for the first time.    Sergio Font FITA Communication