The 6th annual S3DA Indoor National Championship was scheduled to be held at the Owensboro Convention Center in Owensboro, Kentucky, the first weekend of March 2021. However, with the winter resurgence of COVID-19 cases, S3DA made the decision to host the National Championship in a virtual format for 2021, with the plan to return to Owensboro in 2022.
The S3DA national staff worked diligently on a plan to change the format to a virtual event that would allow states to conduct the national tournament in a smaller mini-regional type format with archers competing at multiple locations across the United States. Each state created its own schedules and notified participants and their families of when registration would be available as well as where the event(s) would be held.
Each state had the discretion to facilitate their portion of the national tournament in a way that was the most efficient to accommodate their numbers while also following local and state CDC guidelines. While archers shot at multiple locations, the format was the same as in years past, which is NFAA five-spot style, including 30 arrows (six shooting ends of five arrows each) and archers had the option to choose to shoot a single face target or a five-spot target.
S3DA Executive Director Holly Helton said, “We knew we had to keep our members’ safety top priority while also ensuring they had an opportunity to compete! I am proud of the hard work from our national staff, state coordinators, host teams and volunteers to pull off a record-breaking event and of the members and families for trusting us. I look forward to seeing everybody in person for 2022!”
Although the event was virtual, it was the largest S3DA Indoor National Championship to date with nearly 1,600 registered archers from 162 teams and 24 states participating in the competition.
For more information on S3DA, visit www.s3da.org.