SOLE PHILIPPINE delegate for archery, Dranz Barbin, member from the Blue Archers Archery club, failed to advance to the quarterfinals of the Men’s 80m Recurve event in the 18th ASEAN University Games (AUG) on Friday, July 15, 2016 at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
In the preliminary round held on the previous day, Barbin, the only southpaw in the event, initially had sub-par performance as the erratic movement of the clouds affected the accuracy of his vision, and hence, the preciseness of his arrows. However, before the end of the round, heavy rains and thunder plagued the playing field, causing a two and a half hour delay.
After the skies had cleared, Barbin made up for the lost ground and ended the preliminary round, ranking 14th out of the 16 archers in the field. This set him up with a match against the 3rd seed, Alec Eduar of Indonesia, in the Olympic round.
In the head-to-head match, Barbin was overwhelmed by the Indonesian in straight sets, 2-0, 6-0, 4-0, effectively eliminating the Philippine archer from the competition.
Despite the loss, Barbin puts things into perspective saying that, “This AUG was a tune-up for the SEA games qualifier back at home, so I wanted to get as much experience as I could so that, hopefully, I could have a higher chance of qualifying.”
