Nicholas D’Amour, 17, of St. Thomas, has been chosen to represent the Virgin Islands at the World Youth Archery Championships to be held in Madrid, Spain, from Aug. 19-25. He is the USVI record-holding archer.
The biennial competition has been held since 1992 and features two youth classes: “Cadet,” which includes archers up to 17 years old, and “Junior,” which includes archers up to 20 years old. D’Amour will compete as a Junior, and will shoot the full adult distance of 70 meters using 72 arrows over the course of a day. He will begin head-to-head competition the next day using his first day’s score to seed him in the field.
D’Amour, a lifelong resident of St. Thomas, competes as an Olympic recurve style archer, which requires him to hold the entire weight of the bow with his fingers without the aid of a release aid or load-bearing pulleys. He is the current USVI recordholder in both the WA36 and WA72 rounds, which he set at the World Archery Championships held earlier this year in Den Bosch, Holland.
According to Dr. Bruce Arnold, vice president of the Virgin Islands Archery Federation, “Nicholas is the best archer on the islands, both in the open and Junior categories. We have high hopes for him as he competes in this important tournament and believe he will inspire the youth of the Islands to take up the sport and follow his example.”
D’Amour is a recent high school graduate and will begin as a freshman at San Diego State University in the fall, studying mechanical engineering.
Those wishing to learn more about the Championships and follow scores in real time can do so at https://worldarchery.org/competition/19874/madrid-2019-world-archery-youth-championships#/ Those wanting to follow the scores of the athletes and find updates and photos can do so on the V.I. Archery Federation’s Facebook page, which is open for public viewing at: https://www.facebook.com/VIArchery
