COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado - Early yesterday morning, World Archery Americas' (WAA) General Secretary Sergio Font put out an announcement sharing that compound archery has officially been added to the events lineup for the 2019 Pan American Games. The push for this inclusion came from WAA, member associations - including USA Archery and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Read WAA's announcement in full:
After a long period of negotiations, into which World Archery Americas has put lots of time, effort and resources, we have received confirmation from the Organizing Committee of the Lima 2019 Pan American Games that the compound bow has been included in these Games with individual and mixed team events. The number of participants so far approved is 8 in each gender. World Archery Americas will continue to work with PASO to try to increase this number to 12 men and 12 women.
In the recurve categories, the numbers will remain at 32 in each gender as in the previous Games. The recurve events will include individuals, teams, and the mixed team for the first time in these Games. The archery competition will take place on July 28 - August 1 at the Villa Maria del Triunfo Archery facility in Lima.
When WAA first made the official request to include compound archery in late 2015, Mr. Font shared: "We have submitted lots of information to PASO as to how important compound archery is for the Americas. We have a number of World Cup and World Championships medalists in our continents. It is not just the U.S. anymore. We also have World Event medalists from Colombia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and El Salvador. One third of the archers in the top 50 compound positions in the World Ranking come from the Americas."
Earlier that year, USA Archery spoke with World Archery Secretary General Tom Dielen about the eventual addition of compound to the Olympic Games (read part 1 and part 2 of the conversation). Font hopes that the addition of compound to the Pan Am Games would align with this goal: "World Archery is trying hard to get the compound bow included at the European Games as well. It is already part of the Asian Games schedule. I believe that the inclusion of the Compound bow in the major continental Games would be very positive in our pursuit to have the Compound bow in the Olympic Games."
USA Archery CEO Denise Parker commented: "It is important for the sport of archery to continue to be more relevant within the Olympic movement. This important step of inclusion of compound archery and the mixed team competition is exactly what we want to see happening. If we can get the mixed team competition and compound archery in the Olympics, this not only benefits USA Archery, but the sport as a whole and will increase our relevance within the international sport community."
< Back to All News
