Guyanese Youth Archer completes World Archery Continental Training Camp in El Salvador

Wednesday, Nov 12

The National Archery Federation, Archery Guyana welcomes back home Youth U18 Archer Saifullah Gani and National Head Coach Ryan McKinnon from an International training camp held in San Salvador, El Salvador.

The duo successfully completed training in a Continental Youth Training Camp for Americas, held in Santa Tecla, El Salvador from November 1-8, 2025. The Training Camp was organised in collaboration with World Archery, World Archery Americas, the Archery Federation of El Salvador and was supported by Olympic Solidarity. It brought together young archers and their coaches from across the Americas for high-level training and advanced development in sport.

This prestigious training opportunity allowed them to work with world-class coaches, including Coach Derek Davis and Coach Filippo Clini. Hosted at the world class Jorge Jimenez Archery Range, youth recurve archers of the Americas born 2009 – 2011 were selected from a field of applicants fitting established criteria inclusive of having previously shot the mandatory minimum qualification (MQS) at an official competition.

Reflecting on the experience, Saifullah Gani shared:

"Going to the camp has helped me realise what I need to do to make myself a better archer. At the camp, I was able to absorb the knowledge of the amazing coaches, Coach Derek Davis, Coach Filippo Clini, and my coach Ryan McKinnon, thanks also for guiding me and accompanying me despite his busy schedule. I would like to thank Archery Guyana and World Archery for giving me this opportunity and for pushing other young archers like myself to grow in the sport of archery."

President of the El Salvador Archery federation, Mr. Roberto Hernández warmly welcomed the participants and facilitated the training sessions on the sprawling and well-kept Salvadoran Archery Range.

The camp included intensive physical pre shooting routines, technical training, strategic instruction, mental preparation techniques, practice qualification rounds, one arrow and team competitions under stress, all with the aim of preparing athletes for higher level continental and international competition.

According to Word Archery Certified Level 2 Coach Ryan McKinnon: “This camp reinstates my trust in Guyana’s Archery Federation training policy. From inception we have been focused on using techniques established by the World governing body (World Archery) to develop world class level coaches, athletes and certified instructors. I believe that reinventing the wheel on training is a huge waste of time and resources, especially since we have raw untainted talent with so many new people interested in archery as a sport. To be clear I’m not speaking here about recreational archers and those who want to shoot on some weekends for fun, the importance of those persons in the sport is recognised. The Federation has been bringing World Archery Officials to home soil to conduct certified training for Guyanese in comfort, using subsidised funding from our affiliates and partners. These trainers all bring techniques and concepts that are tested and proven at the highest levels such as World Championships and the Olympics. I am big on adopting what works globally, once done in a sequential manner with strong focus on safety and proper fundamentals Guyana will continue to do well in the sport. My interactions with a familiar face in Derek David together with working for the first time with Flippo Clini thanks to this camp has given me even deeper motivation, especially coming from the team successes in CDC 2025 Trinidad the previous week. Encampment ensured that we were able to do analysis and discuss coaching methods, one of the big topics I want to put out is, breaking of bad habits. I constantly observe our athletes struggling to grasp fundamental concepts because they experiment with what they see on YouTube videos and other ‘training’ videos readily available online. We agreed this is a detrimental habit which makes it difficult for us as coaches to assist them in advancing their personal best and limits elite level performances.  

One of the major takeaways from the camp for me is the benefit of a high training percentage allocated for mental training regardless of physical fitness. In my view this can hold true across all sports, Guyana needs more Guyanese professionals in this field to work with our sports personnel.

Saifullah has shown great capacity for learning and his determination to hone his  skill set for more consistency will no doubt make for his future success in Archery. This camp is truly a privilege for me, given the opportunity to attend and fly the Golden Arrowhead once again internationally, my gratitude to the organizers and all involved in making this possible.”

Archery Guyana wishes to extend its gratitude to President Godfrey Munroe and the Executive Committee of the Guyana Olympic Association for the opportunity to participate in this programme. This collaboration continues to support the growth of archery in Guyana and the development of young athletes on the international stage.

Archery Guyana congratulates Saifullah Gani and Coach Ryan McKinnon for representing Guyana with distinction and demonstrating the nation’s growing excellence in the sport of archery.