MAYBE I need to rephrase my question and so I will.

Has archery made a comeback?

This was our subject matter with old time friend Nino Sinco, my financial relative too. Our paths crossed because of sports, he was then into triathlon organizing in the 90s and I was into covering triathlon.

Later on, we even put up a small events organizing and marketing group and did a collegiate basketball league.

But way back in 1977, he was a national archer and won a team silver in the 1977 Southeast Asian Games, even becoming an archery coach in the early 80s.

Now, after close to 40 years, he is back in his favorite sport, telling me he did just to shoot some arrows with his daughters to pass away time, until the big bug bit him and now he is one of the three full fledged national archery coaches, the others being Joy Marino and Clint Sayo, that is, aside from still shooting arrows.

He is in charge of more than 40 young archers comprising our developmental pool which trains in partnership with their local coaches, with regular online competitions.

Just last month, a group consisting of Olympus Archery PH archers Jonathan Reaport and brothers Shawn and Ryan Tanco, together with Nueva Ecija-based archers Marcus and Miel Cipriano, from the Karessa Club, competed in the Singapore Open, and went home with a bronze and a silver medal.

All of them are under Nino’s wing, one reason to say archery has indeed made a comeback, considering too that at this year’s SEA Games, our team took home a gold, a silver, and a bronze medal, its best performance in recent years.

The fact too that the sport is now attracting young people, helped by the presence of small archery centers in malls, SM in particular, has fueled the sports’s comeback.

Its current NSA, World Archery Philippines (WAP) has also been holding reqular quarterly tournaments aside from encouraging small stand alone events.

If plans push through, our archers will be competing this year in Myanmar and Taiwan, coupled hopefully with a training stint in Taiwan.

Nino also dreams of bringing his young archers to next year’s World Youth Games in Ireland.

Talking of private clubs, the Marikina- based Olympus Archery PH, of which Nino is a member, may be the most active and has even hosted WAP’s national championship.

Nino, together with Bing Reaport, father of Jonathan, and Lester Lim, all from Olympus met recently to plan out a more structured and bigger archery developmental program to support WAP’s efforts.

They are eyeing other archery hotspots like Dumaguete, Baguio, Cebu, Davao, GenSan, La Union, and Pangasinan to work with.

All of these developments combined lead me to conclude that archery has truly made a comeback and is ready to go to the next level. By Lito Cinco