Former USA alternate Gnoriega fulfils dream at Paris Olympics

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT is presented by WIAWIS.

Catalina Gnoriega may have been eliminated yesterday in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, but the American was in high spirits after completing her archery rags to riches story.

The rags being Gnoriega starting her first six months of archery without a bow as her beginners’ club didn’t have an available one at the time, meaning she had to craft her form using rubber bands and PVC pipe bows. 

A bigger humbling pill to swallow for 21-year-old Gnoriega admitted was being chosen the alternate for team USA at the Tokyo 2020 Games. 

It came three years after her appearance in the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games which she said ignited her decision to pursue archery full time.

“I always knew I wanted to be competitive in archery, but that experience really pushed me over the edge where I was like, ‘I know I want to do this, I want to be on that stage and I want to go to the Olympics’,” said Gnoriega. “I remember being on that stage and how that felt.”

Not being able to do it first as senior in Japan though hurt Gnoriega who is starting college later this year to study business.

“Obviously being alternate wasn’t a fun experience, but I think I learned a lot from that. But that also pushed me to say, ‘okay, that’s not going to happen again, and I will be the next team and hopefully the next team after that’.”

“I’m really going to step up my game here because it’s not a position that I like being in, and I knew that I was capable of so much more.”

Due to the sheer size and number of athletes in the USA, selection for the Olympic team is one of the toughest in the world of archery. 

Although she can proudly, officially call herself an Olympian now, the pain of failing to make a Games hasn’t left Gnoriega who still feels for all the archers that didn’t make it.

“I have so much respect for so many people like all my competitors back home who are not here because I know how hard that is and all the work everyone puts in.”

“Unfortunately, only three people get to come here and that’s hard, that’s difficult. I know how that feels.”

It is therefore a sense of fulfilment Gnoriega feels now after Paris despite not making it into any medal matches. 

She and USA’s women’s team were in form heading into Paris picking up golds in last year’s Pan American Games and the Pan American Championships this past April. 

But Gnoriega, Yankton 2021 World Champion Casey Kaufhold and Jennifer Mucino were eliminated in the first round of the women’s team at Les Invalides on Sunday by Chinese Taipei, 5-1 in set points.

Gnoriega’s elimination in the individuals then followed yesterday in the second round after Diananda Choirunisa edged past the American in a shoot-off.

Losing by one arrow is the most brutal of exits for an archer particularly in the biggest competition of them all in the Olympics, but the 2022 Copa Merengue bronze medallist was just ecstatic to perform at the highest level of the sport in front of thousands of spectators.

“It was really incredible,” added Gnoriega whose brothers worked summer jobs especially to pay for plane tickets to watch her. “I don’t know how to explain it. I really love that feeling, like I’ve been on stages before, but this one was different.”

“I’ve never been in front of that bigger crowd like that was insane.”

There will be thousands of athletes in Paris within the next fortnight solely thinking about getting onto the podium, to some that is what these Games are all about: success or failure. 

Although still aspiring to win an Olympic medal one day, for Gnoriega, Paris marks a reminder that, despite not having a bow for the first six months, despite being an alternate for Tokyo, the journey was worth it.