USA, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Mexico win first compound places at Pan Am Games

Forty-four places for the Lima 2019 Pan American Games were won during team eliminations at the 2018 Pan American Championships in Medellin.

For the first time, eight of those place were for compound archers. The organising committee of the Games announced that it would be adding the compound discipline to the sport programme in Lima in early 2017. 

The top four compound mixed teams – USA, Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico – won the first spots to Lima in Medellin.

“We’re very happy, we did a good job. It’s good for Mexico and for us. We enjoyed the result and my teammate shot very well,” said Mexico’s Antonio Hidalgo.

His teammate Esmeralda Sanchez added that they “were very satisfied with the results. We achieved our goal and happy to get something that was never done before. For us to get the spot for Mexico is great.”

The USA and Colombia progress to the compound mixed team gold medal match at the Pan American Championships.

“We had to work for it,” said Paige Pearce. “We had some close matches and had to carry each other through. That’s pretty much why the US sent us down here, to secure those spots [to Lima].”

Twelve recurve teams, six of each gender, won the available recurve places for Lima. All of those that made the semifinals plus the two highest-scoring quarterfinal losers took spots.

The USA, Colombia, Mexico and Chile qualified both men’s and women’s teams.

“It was a great team effort, we all shot great and tried as much as we could,” said Chilean Olympian Ricardo Soto.

“This is historic for our country because we just didn’t win a spot for the Pan American Games, we also make the finals at the Pan American Championships for the first time.” 

Brazil’s women, who went on to win bronze, also qualified a place, as did the 11th seeded female team from Bolivia. The Bolivian squad lost its quarterfinal to Brazil, but won a spot as the second highest scoring loser.

Guatemala upset Mexico to make the final four in the recurve men’s team event – although Mexico also had the place as a high-scoring loser – and Cuba took the last place after losing a quarterfinal shoot-off to Chile.

“We are overwhelmed. We have mixed feelings because it’s the first time we qualify a full team for the Pan American Games,” said Guatemala’s Diego Castro.

“We are really looking forward to it and we are glad we had the chance to come to Colombia and enjoy this win.”

Lima 2019 quota places

• Bolivia: recurve – 3 women
• Brazil: recurve – 3 women
• Chile: recurve – 3 men, 3 women
• Colombia: recurve – 3 men, 3 women; compound – 1 man, 1 woman
• Cuba: recurve – 3 men
• Guatemala: recurve – 3 men
• Mexico: recurve – 3 men, 3 women; compound – 1 man, 1 woman
• Puerto Rico: compound – 1 man, 1 woman
• USA: recurve – 3 men, 3 women; compound – 1 man, 1 woman

Still to be won in Medellin are eight recurve places, to the top four men and women in the secondary qualification tournament, and six compound spots, to the top three of each gender in the secondary event.

The secondary qualification tournament is only open to countries that did not already qualify a recurve team or a compound mixed team. (The maximum number of recurve athletes per gender per country in Lima is three – and one in the compound competitions.)

Places are all awarded to national teams, which may choose whether they are accepted and then who attends the Games.

The remaining 18 recurve and four compound spots for Lima 2019 are awarded at the second and last qualification tournament, which takes place in Santiago de Chile in April 2019.

The 2018 Pan American and Para Pan American Championships take place on 14-19 August in Medellin, Colombia.