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8th World University Archery Championship

Shenzhen, China - September 23rd to 26th, 2010

Opening Ceremony

The WUC Archery is always looked forward to. It was held in China, in Shenzhen, the city where the next Summer Universiade is scheduled in 2011. To get ready for the games, our Chinese friends decided not to leave anything to chance. So they have taken charge of the WUC Archery, since the sport will also be on the Universiade programme.

For student-athletes, the WUC Archery competition is a must on their calendars – competition is at top level, so they love this meet. Moreover, the results are balanced in that there is a very good representation of continents, without domination of one country or one region. So the competitive spirit is at a peak and more than one “star” has lost out to overconfidence. In any case, participation at the archery WUC is constantly on the rise, and the Chinese Federation of University Sports (FUSC) had a very good testing ground before this major Universiade event. Participation was a good average for the championship with 20 countries registering 132 archers (73 men and 59 women).

They got treatment that is usually reserved for larger events – the Organizing Committee made a special effort in three key sectors: security, ceremonies and accommodations, which are of course particularly important for the Universiade. Clearly this championship made a great contribution to the experience of the Universiade Organizing Committee, just a year before the beginning of the games. As an added advantage, because the General Assembly of the Asian Federation of University Sports was taking place at the same time, many VIPs and members of our Executive Committee graced the ceremonies with their presence. The FISU President had an opportunity to thank the members of the championship organizing committee who are also involved in preparing the Universiade.

As we stated above, the university tournament always draws great archers and the Shenzen WUC was no exception.

For the women for example, Belgian Catheline Dessoy was only 17 when she won the team gold medal on the compound bow at the FITA (International Archery Federation) World Championships in Leipzig in 2007. In the same category, American Erika Anschutz was 3^rd in the World Cup finals in Edinburgh in 2010 and twice a medal-winner in the team competition in the Elite World Championships! For recurve bow, we had no less than the current indoor world champion, German Karina Winter!

For the men, Italian Mauro Nespoli, team silver medal winner at the 2008 Olympic Games competed on the recurve bow, as did French Thomas Aubert, another team silver-medal winner at the FITA World Championships in 2009.

In the men’s compound bow, Roberto Hernandez (bronze team medal at the FITA World Championships in 2009), represented Salvador (the smallest WUC delegation), alongside some other big names like Paul Titscher (GER), Adam Gallant and Steve Gatto (USA). So there was a handsome crowd and this list is far from exhaustive.

At the finals, many of these stars found their spots on the podium, along with other, less known but not less deserving archers for example the ones who came from Korea or Iran.

We meet again in Shenzhen at the 26^th Summer Universiade in 2011 and at the next World University Archery Championships to be held in 2012 in Cordoba, Spain.