News

Six countries add Olympic quota places at Americas continental qualifier

27 March 2021

Monterrey, Mexico

Real name:

Luis Alvarez emotional after qualifying an Olympic quota place for Tokyo 2020.

Archery’s qualification race for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has officially restarted after the pandemic hiatus. The Pan American Championships in Monterrey, Mexico, delayed one year like the Games themselves, saw six countries win tickets to Japan this summer – with two of them being new additions to the Tokyo roster.

Brazil, Canada and Ecuador won recurve women’s quota places, while Colombia, Chile and Mexico took the three available men’s invitations.

Olympian Ane Marcelle Dos Santos, who was the host country’s best performer at Rio 2016, won the women’s qualification tournament. Her place was confirmed after a quarterfinal victory and two subsequent matches fell the right way. She was ecstatic when she learned she’d won the spot.

“I’m very happy, very proud. It has been many years of training to be here today and win the place,” she said. “I came here to win that place for Brazil, I trained and sacrificed to be here and win that quota. I’m very proud to be here, win that Olympic place and leave with a gold medal.”

Stephanie Barrett qualified Canada a spot with second and Adriana Espinosa, with fourth, took the last available quota for Ecuador.

The third-placed archer, Tania Edwards, also represented Canada. Since each country could only win a maximum of one quota place per gender in Monterrey, the spot went to the next-highest finisher.

Luis Alvarez was perhaps the most emotional qualifier on the field. The Mexican archer had tears in his eyes when he shot the third of three 10s in the third set of the bronze medal match to seal victory – and the final men’s Olympic quota. He’d not only won the place but done so on home soil. It was a visual reminder of just how important the race to the Games is for recurve archers.

Colombia’s Jorge Enriquez was the winner of the recurve men’s quota tournament – perhaps a surprise winner, given the lack of previous international results – after eliminating redemption story Oscar Ticas and favoured up-and-comer Nicholas d’Amour in the eliminations. (Andres Pila, also from Colombia, made the final four and helped decide the quotas after the quarterfinals.)

“It’s a job done. It’s what we, the Colombian team, came here to do,” said Enriquez. “We did an excellent job. And it was because we prepared hard, both mentally and technically. I’m very happy to have won this for my country.”

Andres Aguilar of Chile slotted in second place, also winning a quota.

Neither Chile nor Ecuador had qualified a place to the upcoming Olympics prior to Monterrey, while the other nations added to their quotas. The two new countries brings the total number of teams qualified for the archery competitions in Tokyo to 37. There are just two qualification events remaining.

European archers will shoot their continental qualifier in early June. The final world qualifier will take place a couple of weeks later in Paris.