Coaches share expertise at international seminar in Spain

Held every two years, the World Archery Coaching Seminar is an international conference that draws together the brightest archery coaching minds from around the world to share, discuss and learn over a multi-day programme that covers topics from areas of archery technique, coaching strategies and athlete management.

The seventh conference was organised by the Spanish archery federation in Fuengirola, near Malaga, Spain. A total of 56 coaches from 19 countries and all five continents attended the four-day seminar, which began on 30 September 2015. 

Guest lecturers included respected international coaches Kisik Lee, Lee Mi Jeong and Cho Myungmok, international judge Jose Jiminez and staff from the Spanish sports federation.

Three-time Archery World Cup Finalist Pierre-Julien Deloche shared his experiences as an elite compound athlete and explained his process of preparing a coaching strategy while training with three coaches. He gave valuable insight into his training programme and approach to career management, including schedules, preparation for international events and relationships with national coaches and teammates.

Other workshop sessions covered subjects like national training centre structures, analysing score statistics and psychology.

Coaches were challenged on their knowledge of rules pertinent to coaching, particularly around archer techniques and high draws, scorecards, timing and scoring, and the appeal process at international events.

“The competitive level of archery’s athletes has been increasing at an impressive rate over the past few years. Behind this increase is a group of highly-knowledgeable and proactive coaches,” said World Archery Secretary General Tom Dielen.

“Sharing knowledge, experience and expertise between coaches – and other groups within the sport, like athletes and judges – is essential for the continued growth of archery. Coaching is the cornerstone of development, and initiatives like the international coaching conference will ensure that archery continues to grow, at an impressive rate, around the globe.”

As well as documented growth in grassroots participation, an improvement in elite level was evident at international events in 2015. For example, when comparing the Aquece Rio Olympic test event to the same tournament ahead of the London Games, four years earlier, recurve women athletes needed a whole 20 points more to qualify in the top five in 2015.

“World Archery would like to thank the Spanish archery federation and its President Vincente Martinez Orga for their hospitality and the hard work committed to successfully hosting the 2015 World Archery Coaching Seminar,” added Tom.

The next World Archery Coaching Seminar is scheduled to be held in 2017 in the under-construction World Archery Excellence Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.