Guyana brings home 9 medals from the Caribbean Development Championships 2023

Thursday, Oct 5

It was a fun-filled and energetic closing of the 5th Caribbean Development Competition which was hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Archery Federation under the auspices of World Archery Americas in September 2023.

The successful competition which saw 176 archers from 11 countries participating, was held over the weekend in capital Scarborough, Tobago at the Dwight Yorke Stadium, Trinidad and Tobago, following closely on the heels of the Continental Judges Seminar.

The Guyana team conducted themselves excellently with a lot of first-time overseas participants, of which the National Federation, its Continental Judges and National Coach are very proud. Although everyone didn’t medal in the respective categories and divisions, they all came away with much more than they would have expected experiencing for the first time how a World Archery international event is organized and executed.

The official practice day (Friday 28th) began with the coaches overseeing the athletes in preparation for the following day’s competition.

Saturday’s Ranking Rounds were shot off by all 11 countries’ teams with athletes vying for their highest possible ranking scores to move onto the elimination and finals matches. In the Recurve Beginner Senior Men Category the highest ranking score after 72 arrows went to the Guyana’s Jeewanram Persaud 608 with Naresh Sukhu placing 7th with 383.

In the Recurve Senior Women Category Roshini Boodhoo came in first place with a high score of 539, followed by 3rd place Julie Ann Williams’ 513, Theresa Deoroop’s 330 - 9th, Bibi Salim’s 244 - 10th and Karin Toppin’s 222 - 11th. In the Barebow Beginner Men, Teemahall Lall came in 2nd with a total score 629 to Barbadian Cole Gill’s 651. Scoring 4th was Richard Dookie with 586, 6th was Courtlee Rodrigues with 536 and 10th was Rasheed Alim with 487.

For the Recurve Beginner U21 Men, Saeed Karim came in 2nd to Jared Nichols of St Vincent and the Grenadines with scores of 570 to 577 respectively.

For the Barebow Beginner U18 Women, Nataliya Pollard placed 3rd with 205 in her category.

In the Exceptional Beginner Recurve Women Victoria Kum scored a total of 472 over her competition to gain the top spot in her category. An impressive personal best for her since she has been shooting. In the Recurve Developmental Senior Men Umasankar Madray placed 9th while Samira Duncan in the Recurve Developmental Senior Women placed 4th.

For the Mixed Teams Guyana’s Roshini Boodhoo and Jeewanram Persaud teamed to place 1st, while the team of Barbados & Trinidad came in 2nd, British Virgin Islands & St Vincent & the Grenadines place 3rd, Curacao and Guyana’s Jair Davelaar and Julie Ann Williams 4th, St Vincent & the Grenadines 5th and lac Guyana’s Barebow Beginner Mixed Team of Teemahall Lall & Nataliya Pollard placed 4th behind Trinidad & Tobago’s 1st, Barbados and Curacao’s 2nd and Jamaica and T&T’s 3rd. Our Mixed Recurve Developmental Team came in 4th behind T&T’s 1st place, Barbados’ 2nd and Jamaica’s 3rd, but over 4th place Curacao & Dominican Republic.

The Recurve Beginner U21 Mixed Team of Guyana & Trinidad saw Saeed Karim of Guyana and Aria Batchasingh of Trinidad place 2nd over Jamaica’s 3rd as St Vincent & the Grenadines came in 1st place.

The Elimination and Final matches were held on Sunday as the athletes gave their best performances for the medals. In the Gold Medal matches Persaud beat Jair Davelaar of Curacao 6-0, while Roshini Boodhoo beat Suzanne Sukram of Trinidad 7-3. Saeed Karim took Gold from Jared Nichols of St Vincent for 6-2. In her category, Victoria Kum got a bye thru to finals and beat Anandita Sameera Singh of Trinidad 6-2. In his category Teemahall Lall took silver as Barbadian Cole Gill took the gold 6-2. Nataliya Pollard took bronze in her U15 category, and in the teams Boodhoo and Persaud were given a bye thru to semi-final where they shot their way to the gold over Calida Charles & Adam Tryhane of Team Barbados & Trinidad 6-0. And in his U21 category Saeed Karim teamed up with Trinidadian Aria Batchasingh to win silver against St Vincent’s Divya Jiandani & Jared Nichols 6-4.

Final results

Individual medals: Jeewanram Persaud-Gold, Roshini Boodhoo-Gold, Saeed Karim-Gold, Victoria Kum-Gold, Teemahall Lall-Silver, Nataliya Pollard-Bronze.

Team Medals: Jeewanram Persaud-Gold, Roshini Boodhoo-Gold, Saeed Karim-Silver

Archery Guyana is very proud of our athletes and officials who represented the country and wishes to thank our sponsor Oasis Water, along with all other sponsors who would have made it possible for our team to travel and return with their respective medals. We would also like to thank USA Archery National Judge and NTS Coach Mr Phil Graves for taking the time to engage and pass on some of his knowledge and experiences to our athletes and coaches.

The Board of Directors of Archery Guyana wishes to acknowledge the usual kind support of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, National Sports Commission, Guyana Beverages Inc., Mr. Samuel Arjoon and the Management of Oasis Water.