2023 Canada Cup East Recap

It took weeks and weeks of tuning equipment and our shooting forms, plus countless hours of training in all kinds of weather conditions.

Eventually, we got to the shoot feeling really good and confident. Upon arriving at the site, we had a couple practice rounds, which were shorter and hectic than expected (there were way more shooters than originally anticipated!).

At 1 p.m., under the scorching sun and a 34 degree weather, the official round (72 arrows/ 6 per round) finally began.

3 rounds passed and Galina’s arrows were wonderful. On the other hand, Felipe’s arrows were behaving erratically.

Suddenly, while I was at the compound range coaching Galina, there was a huge gunshot-like sound.

I turned around and noticed that Felipe’s $1,200 set of 2 limbs was now a set of 2.5 (well… sort of…).

From this moment onward, it was a whirlwind of makeshifts and bandaids solutions.

To explain the situation better, I divided it into 2 parts:

With less than 5 hours of sleep, we headed to the seeding qualification round.

Having had no time or opportunity to sight in and tune at 70 meters, Felipe started the shoot with a lot of 7s, 8s, and occasional flyers.

Therefore, we were not feeling so confident about our skills, due to the lack of training the day before.

However, the 5th round came and everything changed: we started feeling more confident with our equipment and got back to a somewhat normal baseline performance. 

Galina finished the seeding round with 644 (4th seed) and Felipe finished with 613 (10th seed).

Both of the participants experienced a huge improvement, compared to the results of the previous day!

However, it wasn’t enough: we were now onto the elimination round.

Felipe was matched against Shawn Mattheson; he fought to not be eliminated, however the physical and the mental fatigue caught up to him and he dropped a 2-6 match against his opponent (a 5 times Canadian paralympian) in the 1/16 round. 

Galina, though, came away with a quarter final win against Jyostna Challa, with the score of 138-135.

Now onto the next day!

We began the day in a haze of smoke and fog, which to Felipe, seemed to have come from the St-Jean parties and celebrations 😅.

First, the day started with Galine dropping the semi final match to 127-140 to Crystal Gauvin, a former world #2 rank US archer (who would later on win the gold medal 👏).

Then, the score of 133-127 rewarded Galina with a bronze medal. This match was against Catherine and allowed Galina to take home the bronze medal 🙌!

Trivia: Galina vs Catherine was the gold medal match at the 2023 Indoor Provincial Championship match in April 2023 (Catherine took home the gold medal)