BOYLE – A Boyle teenager made the most of a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity, returning from an archery tournament in South Africa with a team gold, as well as an individual bronze medal around her neck.
Three weeks after returning from Camp Discovery, 121 kilometres north of Johannesburg in the northern part of the country, Paige Bechthold, 17, took the chance to reflect on the experience, and what it was like to represent her country.
“It was a truly incredible experience, and I’m so lucky to have had the chance,” said the soon-to-be 12th Grader. “It was a very cool, very interesting experience.”
Bechthold was part of the Canadian delegation to the tournament, competing in the “development” category; younger kids competed in the “junior” group, and adults were classified as “seniors” for the five-day event.
“There was definitely a lot of individual competition, everyone was wanting to shoot their personal best, but we also knew that our scores were going to be counted as a team, so calmed us down a little,” said Bechthold.
Canada placed Top 3 in each of the six categories — each age group was also split by gender — which was good enough to take home the “AGA World Tournament Champion Country” title, something the program had never done before.
“It was a little intimidating at first, but once you got to meet all these nice people, you had a great support system in Team Canada,” said Bechthold. “If you had a bad shoot, you would go back to the line and there would be someone that would calm you down, bring up your confidence and get you ready for the next shoot.”
That support system proved crucial after Bechthold said she got off to a rough start; unlike a normal tournament where you would shoot one “flight,” or six rounds of five arrows each, each athlete shot eight flights for a total of 240 arrows over a two-day period.
“I was able to call my coach from back home, Jahala Chrunyk, the night before I shot and it was great, just being to talk with her and she gave me some last-minute advice,” she said.
Athletes shot on two different types of targets — the traditional bullseye and more modern 3D targets — both indoors and outdoors, which posed an additional challenge for Bechthold, who hadn’t had to account for wind in competition.
“Overall, all the kind people I met really boosted my confidence, and coming home with a personal bronze medal as well was great. Getting the chance to go over there really highlighted how lucky we are to be from Canada,” she said.