After a busy summertime, para archers look forward to Asian Games and new Indoor World Cup

For the first time the para archery division was added to the Arizona Cup this year. The opportunity was taken by US Archery to organise a "hub" so para athletes could be classified using the new criteria.

The standard of shooting was very high in Nove Mesto with several of the old world records beaten.

There was a good spread of medals among the 150 or so archers competing at the Europeans in Nottwil.

Preparation are well under way for the Asian Para Games in October. Entries have just closed and almost 100 athletes from 17 countries will compete for the medals and personal and country pride.

The Head of Classification and the Chairperson of the World Archery Para Archery Committee have just attended the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) seminar to consider the draft IPC Classification Code.

While para archery is an integral part of World Archery, certain international standards do need to be established. However, it is the view of World Archery that the Independent (sports) Federations like Archery must be able to make their own decisions on the various classes available to athletes and not be bound by decisions made by another organisation.

A new event for para archers to look forward to is the first ever Indoor Para Archery tournament. This will be held in Bangkok in early December. Para archers will be able to compete in the Indoor Archery World Cup (6/7 December) if they wish and then compete in the para tournament (8/9 December).

More details re Indoor Para Archery World Cup will follow soon but please start looking at airline schedules because it is a busy time of the year.