The African Archery Championships began with qualification on Thursday at the Nabeul Rugby Stadium in Tunisia – setting up competitions in recurve, compound and barebow.
For recurves, the Championships will function as the continental qualifying competition for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Six spots for African nations are available, in individual and mixed team.
Winning the mixed team championship here will give a country one men’s and one women’s spot each. The top two recurve men and recurve women in the individual event will also receive spots for their country.
The situation gets a little more complicated if a country gets both mixed team and individual places. In this case, the mixed team takes ‘priority’ and the next on the individual list will take a place. You can read more about qualification here.
Most athletes here in Nabeul are recurves, with much smaller compound and barebow competitions taking place alongside. Not many of the athletes competing at this championships are well-known internationally; but with so much at stake, it is possible we will see some breakout stars appearing this week.
Veteran Werner Potgieter of South Africa was the top men’s recurve qualifier with 652, while Rihab Elwalid of hosts Tunisia was top of the women’s list with 636. Egypt were the top qualifiers in both men’s and women’s team.
Matchplay begins on Friday with recurve eliminations for men and women, compound men’s eliminations, and recurve mixed team.
Source: World Archery
