Archer offers Olympic stint to dad's memory

LONDON – Lady archer Rachelle Anne Cabral-de la Cruz confessed she left home in Camarines Sur as a teenager to escape her abusive father but since he passed away last November, she has forgiven him and is dedicating her Olympic presence here to his memory.

Cabral-de la Cruz, 27, compiled 627 points to rank 48th of 64 in the 72-arrow seeding at the Lord’s Cricket Ground – one of the city’s oldest sporting venues inaugurated in 1816 – last Friday.  She takes on No. 17 Inna Stepanova of Russia in the first round of head-to-head knockout pairings starting tomorrow. Survivors move on to compete in the next knockout rounds on July 31 and Aug. 1. The women’s finals are on Aug. 2.

“My father (Teodoro Vicente) was very strict with me when I started to take archery seriously,” she said. “He wanted me to be disciplined. I started shooting when I was 14 with my father, an archer, as my coach. But he was often drunk. My mother Mariday was a battered wife. When I couldn’t take the physical abuse, I left home to go to Manila. Four years later, my mother followed. Although we were living apart, I still kept in touch with my father and sometimes, even visited him. He was a janitor in a school in Camarines Sur. One day, last November, he was found dead after getting drunk – he was 52. No matter what, he was still my father and I owe my athletic career to him. He influenced my love for sports.”

The eldest of six children, Cabral-de la Cruz showed the way for her siblings to find their place in the sun through archery. Her sister Geraldine, 22, was in the training pool for two years until she gave birth. Two other sisters Marie, 21, and Sarah, 18, are also archers. Sarah is with the University of Makati archery varsity. Two brothers Theodore Vicente, 17, and Michael, 16, are in the national archery training pool.

“We’re a family of archers,” said Cabral-de la Cruz, a graduate of Physical Wellness and Education at the University of Makati last year. “My mother is a dispatcher at a restaurant in Pasig and with my father gone, my brothers, sisters and I try to support each other. We started hard training hoping to qualify for the Olympics last February. It’s been no rest, six days a week, shooting 200 to 300 arrows every day. My schedule on the range is from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On other days, it’s 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Aside from shooting on the range, we do a lot of push-ups and go jogging to stay in shape.”

Cabral-de la Cruz, who got married to another national pool archer Paul de la Cruz last February, said she’s convinced that the Philippines has a chance to win an Olympic gold medal in her sport. “There is no cheating in archery, no subjective decision,” she said. “That’s why we have a chance. It’s not like in boxing or taekwondo or gymnastics. In archery, you shoot at the target and the best shooter wins. When I’m shooting, I’m always going for a perfect score. I think it’s 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. If all the archers are just as physically fit as the other, then what will make the difference is their mental toughness.”

Cabral-de la Cruz welcomed the new Olympic scoring system where instead of shooting a set of 10 arrows in the head-to-head knockout eliminations, the format now features a race to six points in a best-of-five series, taking away cumulative scores. “It’s fair and it gives equal chances to all,” she said. The knockout series involves a maximum of five sets, each set or end consisting of three arrows for each archer. Two points are awarded for winning a set with a point going to both competitors in case of a tie. The first to six points wins the duel.

Archery made its Olympic debut in 1900 but was dropped out of the calendar in 1920. It was reintroduced in 1972 and since then, South Korea has been the dominant country in the sport with 16 gold medals and 30 in all. No wonder that the Philippine archers’ coach is Korean Chun Jae-Hun and they went on an intensive 10-day training program in Seoul before checking in at the Olympic Village here.

According to the Olympics official program, the modern version of archery requires steely nerves and hands plus unwavering focus. “The object is simple, shoot arrows at a target marked with 10 evenly spaced concentric rings valued from one to 10,” the program explained. “The closer to the center, the higher the score. The target is 70 meters away and only 1.22 meters across. It’s 10-point gold circle measures 12.2 centimeters in diameter. If archers are tied at the end of a match, they shoot one arrow each to decide the winner who hits closest to the center.

Cabral-de la Cruz said she’s competing to win. “That’s my goal, to win the gold,” said the gritty archer who eliminated another Filipina Edwina de los Reyes, 7-1, in a playoff for the ticket to London at the world qualifiers in Utah last June.

The country’s male archery entry Mark Javier, 30, said to prepare for London, he fired 500 to 600 arrows a day. “We shot the whole day plus night shooting for two hours with our break only to eat,” he said. “That was six days a week. We started practice about 9 a.m. and went up to 9 p.m. We did about 90 pushups a day and also bow training thrice a day. Each day, I prepared with mental training or imagery. I pictured myself shooting a 10 every time – that’s what will be on my mind when I compete.”