Chris Lowrey
ARGENTINA Oct. 11, 2017
Quyon archer Alexandra Paquette will be coming back to her hometown with a shiny silver medal hanging around her neck from the World Youth Archery Championships in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The bow and arrow aficionado is ranked number one in Canada for her age group and is now second worldwide in the cadet age group.
Paquette made it to the gold medal match after a couple of tough outings. The wind at the competition grounds was fierce, making it tough for her to display her usual pinpoint accuracy.
Paquette’s father James said that with the gusting winds, he thinks Alexandra may have been compensating, which put her in the tough position of having to have a perfect final round.
She was down by four points heading into the final round of the quarter finals when she shot a nearly perfect score for the win.
Paquette left for Buenos Aires on Sept. 30 and her plane arrived back in Canada in the early morning of Oct. 10. She told her dad that the only thing she wanted was a good breakfast.
“She said, ‘I could just kill for a good solid Canadian breakfast with bacon and eggs,’” her dad said with a laugh.
The road to Buenos Aires was tough, but she got there with help from her community, friends and family.
Many people in the community dug into their pockets and donated to Alexandra’s cause. The community’s generosity eventually sent her to Argentina.
Paquette specializes in the compound bow category. Compound bows have little wheels at the end of the bow which allows the archer to spend less energy pulling the bow back and holding it in position while aiming.
Unfortunately, the Olympic Games don’t have the compound category, only the recurve category.
Recurve bows don’t have the wheels, making it harder to draw the bow back and hold it in position.
Because of this, it’s tougher for compound archers to get funding to further their career. For instance, Paquette said that Hydro Quebec offers scholarships to archers, but only those who compete in the recurve category.
Which is why the help of the community to raise a chunk of the more than $5,000 it cost to send her to Argentina was so important.
There are several tournaments on the horizon that the Paquettes have their sights set on. One of them is the World Indoor Archery Championships and the other is the Lancaster Classic in Pennsylvania.
“The Lancaster Classic is less prestigious, but one could have a bigger payout,” James said.
But most importantly, before the family contemplates the next competition, a little bit of rest and relaxation are called for.
“Basically right now we’re just going to sit and relax for a bit and see where our finances are,” James said.
