Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 24, 2024: World Archery instructor Christos Karmoiris has a special target as he prepares to take part in the OCA Development Programme for Coaches and Referees in Kuala Lumpur, starting Monday.
“My motto is ‘720’,” he says, referring to the maximum score an archer can achieve in a ranking tournament by hitting the 10 with 72 consecutive arrows.
“This is the perfect score – but we have never had that,” he adds. “This means that all the time we have something to learn, even if you are the best archer in the world.”
World Archery has three levels for international coaches – novices, intermediate/club coaches and advanced – and the Greek instructor will be targeting the second level for the 13 coaches registered for this programme.
“It will be a very interesting programme because Asia is the No. 1 continent in the world for archery. The coaches will be at different levels and coming from different countries and different cultures but our aim is the same – to learn from each other,” he adds.
“We need experience from them and they need experience from other countries. These coaches will listen to me and they will listen to the other coaches, so it’s a great idea and great move by the OCA.”
The OCA/World Archery National Coaches Course Level 2 will involve six days of theoretical and practical sessions, as well as a competition involving some young local archers under the guidance of the coaches. The competition will be held in cooperation with the participants of the OCA/World Archery Intermediate World Archery and National Judges’ Course and will take place at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil.
For the coaches, the sessions include equipment setup and tuning, stance and posture, mental skills and coaching archers with disabilities.
Christos acknowledges that mental preparation and discipline are key to the success of athletes in archery, and this is one of the reasons why Asia is at the top.
“The countries are very dedicated; they respect each other and they develop each other,” he added. “Asia is developing a lot.”
*Archery is one of the four sports in this third stage of the OCA development programme for coaches and referees in Southeast Asia and East Asia, along with badminton, swimming and table tennis. The course runs from November 25-30 and follows camps for West Asia in Kuwait and for South Asia and Central Asia in Uzbekistan in 2022.