Archery returns to Para Pan American Games programme for Santiago 2023

Archery has been officially announced as one of the 17 sports on the programme of the 2023 Para Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile, marking its return to the multisport event after it was left off of the schedule in 2019.

The Para Pan American Games, a competition for athletes with physical disabilities, are held immediately after the Pan American Games, for able-bodied athletes, in the same host city.

In 2019, Lima hosted the two events – and compound archery made its successful debut at the able-bodied Games.

Colombia’s Sara Lopez and El Salvador’s Roberto Hernandez won the inaugural individual titles. It was already announced earlier this year, in May, that the compound competition would expand for 2023, with two-athlete team events (in the style of the University Games) and 14 quota places added.

The return of the sport to the Para Pan American Games, after para archers missed out on the opportunity to compete in Lima, is welcome news.

Twenty-eight para archers from six nations competed in four individual events – men’s and women’s, recurve and compound open – at the Toronto 2015 Para Pan American Games. Brazilian archers Luciano Rezende and Jane Karla Gogel, and the USA’s Natalie Wells and Andre Shelby took the gold medals.

A total of 48 para archers will compete at Santiago 2023, which is nearly double than in Toronto. Details on the specific events, competition categories and the distribution of quotas are yet to be published.

Archery was at the core of the Paralympic movement when it began in the 1940s. It was used as a rehabilitation activity at the hospital in Stoke Mandeville at which Sir Ludwig Guttmann, the founder of the Paralympic Games, worked with wounded war veterans.

World Archery Americas president Maria Emma Gaviria said: “Archery embodies the spirit of the Paralympic movement and is a sport that everyone can access and in which everyone can compete as equals.”

“We are ecstatic that this return to the programme of the Para Pan American Games will give para archers across the continent an equal opportunity to compete in the highest level of multisport competition in the Americas once again.”

Santiago 2023 chief executive officer Felipe De Pablo said: “[The sports programme will be] a wonderful spectacle that will enhance the performances of everyone who comes to fight for a medal. The athletes are, and always will be, at the heart of our Games.”