Aya, teener eye Olympic slot

MANILA, Philippines — It’s an unlikely pair, combining Aichi-Nagoya silver medalist Aya Cojuangco, 40, and three-time U18 Singapore Youth Championships gold medalist Mateusz Johnson, 18, but Philippine archery coach Ryu Su Jeng is seriously considering the tandem to seek qualification for the first-ever mixed compound event at the 2028 LA Olympics.

Cojuangco said she hasn’t been notified whom the World Archery Philippines (WAP) will pick to attempt qualification. Only 12 teams, made up of one male and one female, will shoot in LA. Cojuangco said it’ll be a tight race and one slot was awarded to India for striking gold in Nagoya. With the US taking an automatic berth as host, 10 tickets are left up for grabs.

To be considered for the Olympics, individual athletes must score at least 690 points for men and 670 for women over the 50-meter, 72-arrow qualifying round during a World Archery event from Sept. 15, 2026 to June 20, 2028. In Nagoya, Cojuangco tallied 691 points in the qualifying round.

The key World Archery competitions next year are the World Cup in Shanghai in April, World Cup leg in Antalya in May, World Cup leg in Tijuana in June, World Cup leg in Madrid in July and World Championships in Colombia on Sept. 20-27.

WAP president Bing Reaport said he has eyes on Johnson. “Mat’s already in our national youth training pool,” Reaport informed PSC chairman Patrick Gregorio. “He’s our top archer in U18 from Davao. Coach Ryu and coach Hong (Sung Chil) have a team in mind but we need to go through the process of tryouts. We’re very confident with Mat. We were supposed to bring him to Nagoya but during tryouts at the start of the year, he struggled and didn’t make the cut. His performance started to improve in April. Kailangan lang natin siya pahinugin. We’re very excited for the Asian Youth Championships in Dubai in December. We think we’ll be able to showcase lahat ng magagaling natin sa youth. We’re sending 32 archers, complete team sa U21 and U18 in all categories.”

Gregorio said the youth pool is deep. “This is serious stuff and our grassroots youth development is improving because kids are watching (our progress).”