Manitoba archer scores 1st-place win at U.S. indoor collegiate championship

A Winnipeg archer scored a top-notch target last month after placing first at the U.S. national indoor collegiate championship, beating out the runner up by just one point.

Twenty-year-old Austin Taylor nabbed the top spot with a score of 593 of 600 points at a Kentucky competition in January, defeating athletes at other tournaments, including Ethan Merrill of Texas A&M (592 points) and Dillon Thompson of Wabash Valley College in Illinois (590 points).

"[The title's] definitely up there," Taylor said in a Monday interview with CBC Radio's Up to Speed. "There's a lot of good shooters down here, and I'm really happy that I won."

He also set a new Canadian match-play record and personal best at his local semi-final match with a perfect score of 150 points, shooting 15 consecutive arrows across 18 metres into the target's centre.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the U.S. championship accepted collegiate scores from local tournaments across the country that took place from Jan. 1 to March 31, after which Taylor was declared the winner.

I remember spending five hours at the archery range a day to shoot my bow and having a blast.- Austin Taylor

The Manitoban, a second-year business administration student at Lindsey Wilson College in Kentucky, is no stranger to international competitions. He said he managed to approach each match with composure.  

Taylor picked up archery at 13 after eyeing his older brother's bow, eventually obtaining his very own and practising at Heartland Archery in Winnipeg.

"When I first started, I was just having a lot of fun," he said. "I remember spending five hours at the archery range a day to shoot my bow and having a blast."

Allan Gunter said Winnipeg's tight-knit archery community is cheering Taylor on the win — especially everyone at his home archery range.

"I know that everyone there is very proud of him," said Gunter, Taylor's longtime coach and mentor in the city. "I'm proud of all the accomplishments that he has and especially, to see ... his success continue when he moved down there in the collegiate ranks. It's awesome."

Accolades for archery

Gunter, a former manager of Heartland Archery, met Taylor as he was starting out in the game.

"You could just tell fairly early on that … he had the right personality to be a good archer," said Gunter. "Everything is even keel all the time."

Taylor's aim has earned him multiple accolades, including being named Sports Manitoba's 2019 male junior athlete of the year. He also took home silver at the 2019 world archery youth championship in Spain.

The young archer, who graduated from Winnipeg's Kildonan East Collegiate, moved south of the border after a coach at Lindsey Wilson College recruited him.

"I was contacted by the coach, and I figured, 'Why not?'" said Taylor.

After a 2020 summer hiatus, he picked up the sport again at school, where he shoots for the Blue Raiders archery team. Taylor practises four to five times a week, two hours in each session, and has shifted his training to outdoor archery.

He competed in the U.S. national outdoor regional championships in early April with hopes of qualifying for nationals in late May.