NATIONAL Archer Devin Permaul is enduring a challenging yet fruitful outing as he continues to perform at the ongoing Pan American Championships.
The lone Guyanese who is currently in Monterrey, Mexico, representing the Golden Arrowhead, has received massive support from the local body Archery Guyana (AG).
According to Archery Guyana’s secretary-general Vidushi Persaud-McKinnon, all reports so far reflected from colleagues across the Americas, the the Guyanese has been a great representative thus far.

Permaul is there wearing so many caps alone in Mexico – athlete, administrator, coach, motivator, public relations person, among others.
“A lot has been put into this trip, due to the current situation of COVID-19 restricting most travel. The Pan Am Championship was cancelled in the previous year, but with safety protocols in place, organisers were able to proceed with the tournament this year. It’s been hard finding a reason to shoot with the idea the Olympics and other tournaments may have been cancelled, but this was my motivation to get back to it,” said the marksman.

“The tournament started with the Qualification round where after 72 arrows a 602 was shot. That score put me in a position of 30th.
“It’s frustrating to shoot this score when I am capable of 640-650 outdoors. This is the most nervous I’ve ever felt in a competition but all I can do now is continue forward,” he added.
The way this tournament is formatted, after you shoot qualifications there are two eliminations – a regular elimination bracket and one for the Olympic quota spot.

The following day, regular eliminations were held. In the 1/24 bracket, I was up against Chile ranked #35 Mesa Rivas Daniel and won 6-2. Proceeding to the next bracket of 1/16, I was up against #3 Arcila Santiago.

“I felt good going into this round as the nerves were starting to settle. We were neck and neck at 4-4 but #3 prevailed and pulled ahead at the end with a perfect 30. My confidence was definitely up after that competition, knowing I could put up a fight.” Permaul added.

Friday, the 26th, was the elimination for the Olympic qualifier. He was up against #8 from Chile. That was the reason why most of the athletes participated in this tournament and Devin hoped to be one of those hopefuls.

The night before, ss we spoke, Devin was sitting there with a stretch band looking into the mirror to make sure he has his form down so as to shoot well yesterday. According to Devin, “Confidence plays such a huge role in this sport, and I want to be sure that I am ready,” he ended.