GUANGZHOU – Theoretically, the country’s best chance for an Olympic gold is archery, one of the most neglected sports.
Archery doesn’t require the height of a basketball player or the power of a weightlifter. It basically requires skills and lots of mental power. The higher the IQ of an individual, the greater the concentration. The highest score in the sport is the result of harmonious mind and body coordination as the archer zeroes in on the mark over 90-meter, 70-meter, 50-meter and 30-meter distances.
Korean Im Dong-hyun, who won the world championships in 2007, has an impaired vision. The target is a blur but with his great power of concentration, he sees the target as if it were right in front of him -- it’s on his mind. He rejected offers to have his eyes operated on to improve his vision.
He also won the Doha Asian Games gold before Kim Woojin, another Korean, took his place in Guangzhou.
Korea has won 29 of 40 gold medals in the Asian Games. It’s the Olympic overall champion and second to the USA in the World Championships.
They are champions now and they want to reign forever.
Their facilities simulate an Olympic shampionship – complete with make-believe TV and still cameras, and large, clapping audiences. They develop mental toughness. They devise drills to reduce the fear factor and overcome pressure in competition and employ psychologists to help the archer maintain a positive stance in a critical situation.
The Philippines had produced great archers from the women’s rank in Jennifer Tabanag, Jennifer Chan and about five years ago Amaya Paz, who have all ascended to the throne in various editions of the Southeast Asian Games from 1985.
Unlike the Koreans who have a large pool of athletes from which they choose their Olympic and Asian Games candidates, the Philippines hardly has no pool to talk about.
The National Archery Association of the Philippines (Naap) doesn’t bring the sport to the grassroots level, encourage young students to take up the sport and join weekend clubs, and encourage clubs to conduct tournaments.
It doesn’t even have a national archery range.
“Our leaders have been there for a long time and they go by the old system – conduct a national open once a year and pick the national athletes. There is no sports program in between,” said Terry Lim, secretary general of a rival organization, which is seeking new leaders with a passion for the sport.
The Diliman Archery Range, which used to be the home of national archers, is no longer accessible because the memorandum of understanding with the archery association has lapsed.
The only active archery club is that in Silliman, which has produced Tabanag, Chan and Olympian Mark Javier.
Many members have chosen to find a job and quit the sport altogether, leaving a dearth of potential national archers.
Javier and Delfin Adriano were the two left from a pool of archers that have gone because the association has practically abandoned the sport.
The women’s pool is totally drained. Javier and Adriano, who qualified to compete in Guangzhou under POC criteria, failed to get past the round of 32.
Korea’s Kim Woojin ripped the world record in the qualification tournament and Korea went on to sweep all four gold medals the way they did in the past four Asiads.
For the Asiad, Javier was trained by a veteran archer who doesn’t receive a coach’s allowance from the Philippine Sports Commission, but who continued to train Javier without pay at Silliman University.
“It’s for the love of the sport,” said Jennifer Chan.
When Javier was instructed to come to Manila to train a month before the Asian Games, he had to practice on the outer section of the ULTRA track and field oval.