Mark: Representing Malawi at its first international

Mark Abell and David Areneo represented Malawi for the first time ever at an archery event. Coached by Korean and Olympian Park Young Sook, the youth duo had a difficult trip to Antalya – due to air tickets and visas – that put their participation in jeopardy.

“It was a four-day journey so I thought we were going to miss the competition. I’m very happy to be here and even though we didn’t practice for four days, we gave our best in this World Cup,” explained Mark, who started archery a year ago.

“This is my first time participating in a competition and Malawi’s first time at an international archery competition.”

Malawi is located in the southeast of Africa. To come to Antalya, the team flew through Nairobi, where they were stuck due to their visas not being accepted on the flight.

“Our coach did her best and solved the problem,” said a chuffed Mark.

Young Sook competed at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games and won world championship medals with the Korean recurve women’s team. She was coach of the Italian recurve women’s team when they won gold at the worlds in Turin 2011.

For their first international competition and taking into account their late arrival – the trio finally arrived at the hotel just after 2am on the day of qualification – they did Malawi proud, competing with the latter end of the ranking list for much of the ranking round.

At halfway, 36 arrows shot, Mark had scored 292 out of 360 and David 261.

Tiredness and hunger began to set in over the back straight. (During interviews, David smiled as he asked if we could be quick because they had missed breakfast and usually eat a couple of times before midday.)

Respectively, the pair shot scores of 262 and 224 for a total of 554 and 485 points.

Mark said Antalya was completely different from Malawi. The buildings, tower blocks and hotels impressed him – but he was more focused on improving his archery.

“This week I have to learn some skills from different archers. They use very good quality bows, even arrows. Their posture is perfect compared to mine,” said Mark.

Humbled but not overcome by the experience of shooting with so many archers from all around the world, while Mark did not make the cut to continue into the head-to-head phases he still has work to do in Antalya.

“I want to learn how to make a good relationship with all the archers. All the persons from all the different countries.”

Malawi’s team will return home later this week content with a successful international debut completed.

With Park Young Sook as their coach and after all they have shown in Antalya, there’s more to come from this African archery nation.