May 3, 2024
Dragos Olarescu, a Senior Architect from the Timmins, Ontario office, is travelling to El Salvador in early May. His purpose being to compete in the Master Class of the Barebow division in Target Archery – World Archery 720 round (72 arrow shot at 50m on 122cm target face). He is the only male competitor from Canada in his age class attending the 2024 Games.
Dragos has had experience with archery and various types of bows for about 15 years now. When he moved to Timmins in 2014 he joined the Timmins Bowhunters Archery Club and started competing across Ontario. He began his journey in traditional competitions, meaning he used a recurve with wood risers as per Archery Canada rules that adopted the World Archery rules in 2019. It was around 2020 that he decided to switch to the barebow. This is another division where the bow is and Olympic Recurve stripped of its attachments like sight, stabilizers, and clickers. It uses a metal riser with elevated rest and plunger.
Dragos had been inspired by fellow competitor Alex Melnik who competed in Italy in 2022 and became the first Canadian Barebow archer to win a silver medal on the global stage. Last year during the Ontario Championship, Dragos met Alex, competing against him, and becoming good friends after. As such a specialised sport, there are very few Barebow archers in Ontario in the upper age brackets - about 7 in Master (+50) class. It is however gaining popularity with the younger archers.
Well deserved after years of dedication and training, Dragos won silver in the Ontario Target Championship in 2023. The results of which were used as the qualifier for the Pan Am Games. He expressed his interest in participating to the 2024 Youth and Masters Pan Am Championships, and Archery Canada reviewed his performance results, and the rest is history.
Dragos will travel to El Salvador a few days earlier to try and get a feel for shooting in the heat, a vast difference from Timmins in the spring. He says he’s trying not to get too excited; just go do his best and let the chips fall where they may. He notes that while it is an honour to participate and represent Canada, his focus isn’t on that right now, its on his training and personal game.
Best of luck, Dragos. We’re rooting for you.
