From an archery point of view, January was not a good month for Samantha Wright, four-time women’s national 3D archery champion, but from a funding perspective January was an excellent month.
Wright went to Lethbridge to compete in the Canadian Indoor 3D archery championships and described her performance succinctly.
“Not well,” she said with a hint of a sarcastic chuckle.
“But it was good seeing everybody.”
Wright left for Lethbridge on a Friday, having tended to two children with the sniffles. Moms everywhere know exactly what happened next.
“I started feeling pretty yucky by the time we got there Friday and by Saturday morning I had a fever and my throat was all swollen up,” the world 3D archery bronze medal holder said.
Despite being under the weather, Wright completed both of her rounds.
Saturday, after three rounds of 20 targets, despite feeling less than perfect, Wright was ahead by seven points – an obvious testament to her skill.
But as luck would have it, Wright didn’t get any sleep Saturday night as she battled a fever and an ear ache to go along with her sore throat.
“By Sunday morning I just couldn’t concentrate,” Wright said.
“But I shot my round anyways.”
“It was not a good round,” she said with a roll of the eyes.
Although many archers would be ecstatic with a round of 180 out of a possible 200, at the elite level, especially for Wright, it is a disappointing round.
Remarkably, Wright finished the competition in fourth spot, just four points out of a first-place finish.
Although the competition did not go quite as anticipated, Wright still managed to score better than 80 per cent of perfect which she needed to get her third of six cards required to represent Canada at the next world 3D championships in Austria.
The fourth and fifth cards will come from the outdoor provincial and national championships this summer and the final card will come from a local event sanctioned by Archery Canada.
But January did have a silver lining for Wright as she found out she received funding from the Integris Credit Union to support her training and participation in the world 3D archery championships.
A big relief for Wright who was not sure how she was going to dedicate enough time to training while trying to raise an estimated $5,000.
“I just about fell over,” Wright said was her reaction when she read the offer of funding for $4,000 from ICU.
“It’s huge, it means I can focus on training.”
The funding comes from the ICU Advisory Council membership services supervisor Peggy McKenzie explained.
The funds generated from ICU profits are set aside annually to support various activities within the community, including not only sport, but education, charities and other areas of endeavour.
“She is going to go across the province, the country and the world and represent Quesnel and Integris Credit Union” McKenzie said to explain why the Advisory Council decided to support Wright.
“It’s absolutely phenomenal,” she said.
For information regarding funding from the ICU advisory council contact your local Integris branch.