Archers getting ready to compete legally in Penticton at B.C. Winter Games

PENTICTON – Arrows will fly — legally — in Penticton this week as 73 archers prepare to compete in the B.C. Winter Games.

A bylaw amendment made by the City of Penticton last year makes the archery competition legal within city limits. Prior to that use of drawbows in the city was illegal under the Firearms Regulation Bylaw.

Shawn Hibner is a 14-year-old from Oliver who is representing Zone Two in the Thompson-Okanagan. He says the sport involves staying calm and focused on what you’re doing.

“There’s not a lot of strategy in the sport,” he says in a media release. Hibner has been practising the sport since getting involved with it as an after school activity three years ago.

He’ll be joined in competition by fellow Oliver archer Delaney Wise, also 14.

“If I do good at the B.C. Games, I’d like to try and go further, but for now I just want to have fun and do my best,” Wise says in the release.

Archers will compete in three categories based on different bow styles; barebow, recurve and compound bow. They compete in 10 rounds of three arrows aimed at targets 18 metres away.

Penticton’s fourth turn at hosting the B.C. Winter Games gets underway on Thursday, Feb. 25.

For more information, visit the B.C. Games web page.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.