After finishing third in the qualifying ranking round, Virgin Islander Nicholas D’Amour fought hard through the elimination matches to strike gold and reach the top of the podium at the Central American Caribbean Games.
Hard fought is an understatement. In his first elimination match, D’Amour faced Christel Denis Nicolas of Martinique. D’Amour was down 0-4 and fought back, winning the next three sets to beat his opponent 6-4 with scores of (26,27,28,29,30) to his opponent (27,28,25,23,24).
D’Amour next faced Angel Gonzalez Reyes from Puerto Rico, winning 6-4 in a four-set match.
In the quarter-finals, D’Amour faced Javier Vega Valle of Cuba. Again, D’Amour faced a formidable challenge. He was leading 4-0 when Vega Valle battled back to tie 4-4. The two opponents tied the fifth and final end, forcing a one arrow shoot-off. D’Amour opened with a perfect 10 and bested Vega Valle’s eight. The final scores were D’Amour (26,26,26,26,28) T.10 and Vega Valle (24,24,29,28,28) T.8.
The win put D’Amour in the semi-finals against Hugo Franco from Cuba. D’Amour and Franco had previously faced each other in the finals of the Copa Merengue in Santo Domingo last year, where D’Amour won a Gold medal, beating Franco in a close match 6-4. In these semi-finals, D’Amour again prevailed, winning 6-2. This win set up the finals against Jorge Enriquez of Colombia.
D’Amour handily beat Colombia’s best archer 6-0 with a score (29,27,29) to Enriquez’s (27,26,28) for the Gold medal. This is the first Archery Gold medal in the history of the Virgin Islands at the Central American Caribbean Games.
Earlier in the week, D’Amour and Anne Abernathy teamed up in the mixed recurve team division. They qualified eighth with a total score of 1,223. They went on to win their first-round elimination match over ninth-ranked Trinidad and Tobago 6-2 (30-33, 33-32, 37-27, 35-30). In their quarterfinal match against top-ranked Mexico, they lost 6-0 (37-35, 39-36, 38-35). As a mixed team, they finished sixth overall.
The Virgin Islands Team of Anne Abernathy, Tatyana Muntyan, Mike Gerard, Bruce Arnold and D’Amour next head to Berlin for the World Archery Championships from July 31 to Aug. 6. This will be the first qualifier for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Team Virgin Islands will compete in individual Women and Men Olympic Recurve, Mixed Team Recurve, and Men Team Recurve.
