Earlier this month (2-4 October), the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) sent an enthusiastic team recently to Rustenberg, South Africa for the All Star Africa Championships, Africa’s biggest NASP tournament. Though underdogs facing much more experienced teams from neighboring South Africa and Namibia, Zimbabwe’s relatively young team held its own to earn silver medals in a tense and thrilling series of quality archery matches that went down to the wire. Zimbabwe archery was represented by students from five schools, facing South Africa who draws talent from over 200 schools nationwide.
South Africa won the championship at the team level, with Zimbabwe coming second and Namibia third. Although South Africa is rated second worldwide, Team Zimbabwe offered them a fair challenge and took home gold and silver medals for the top two female archers on the continent, Cristina Jackson (aged 10) and Chelsey Hunter (aged 13).
Zimbabwe’s top junior archers will proceed to the All-World Archery Challenge in the Drakensburg, South Africa in July 2016. NASP Zimbabwe organizers are confident that the young archers will have developed the local talent to a greater extent before that challenge.