In February 2012, the President of the South African National Archery Association, under Article 12 of the Constitution formed the SANAA Olympic Commission, under the chairmanship of Prof Konrad van Warmelo with the goal of having a South African archer achieve at least 10th place at the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Since then, the committee, which includes Olympian Leanda Hendriks and retired archer Deon Louw, have formulated a five stage plan, which now forms part of SANAA's 4-year plan, to achieve that goal.



Part of the plan involves talent identification where archers would be tagged to participate in a 4-year program covering international level coaching and tournament participation. The Commission will have full access to the Gold Squad monitoring program, where all archers scores, shot at sanctioned tournaments, are monitored.



Part of the talent identification system took place at the 2012 SA National Archery Championships (Grahamstown), where talent scouts will be keeping an eye on standard bow, recurve limited and recurve archers.

However, the search for talent continues. Talent may be identified at club, provincial or national level.

The SA National Archery Association is looking for potential archers who have a dream of shooting at the 2016 Rio Olympics.At the opening the 62nd SA National Archery Championships, federation president, Dr Selwyn Moskovitz announced that the work of the SANAA Olympic Commission officially starts their four-year project in earnest today.

The Commission, which was established in terms of Article 12 of the SANAA Constitution, gives the body the powers to carry out the specific mandate of identifying talent, nurturing that talent and providing a group of archers who can be selected for the Rio 2016 Olympics.The commission comprises of FITA Judge Emeritus Professor Konrad van Warmelo, Olympian Leanda Hendriks and Dion Louw.

The ideal candidate is one who has the dream to compete in the Olympics, whether he or she thinks it is impossible or not. After all, it all starts with a dream. The Olympic round consists of 72 arrows shot at 70m in the recurve archery division.Members of any age or gender are invited to contact the commission.