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Red Deer’s Wiley finishes fifth in archery

Feb 28, 2019 | 12:20 PM

Red Deer athlete reaches goal in archery

The individual female compound archery playoffs wrapped up Thursday at Westerner Park.

Kaitlyn Wiley from Red Deer fell short in her quarterfinal match, losing to Ontario’s Abigail Bunn.

Despite what she described as a tough competition, Wiley is happy on how she performed.

“(It was) a very big eye opener coming into the Canada Games. Placing fifth, though, it was my goal.

“It was my goal coming in to make the top five and to shoot over a 560. The final score you can get is a 600 and so on both days I placed over the 560 as my goal. I’m just happy that I could get my goal where I wanted to so it was good shooting.”

After defeating Wiley, Bunn went onto capture the bronze medal in a match against Manitoban, Bryanne Lameg.

Marie Paquette of Quebec took home the gold.

Wiley described her biggest takeaways from competing at the Games.   

“The biggest thing that I’ve taken away is how amazing and nice everyone is talking to from other provinces,” she says. “Also my shooting, just knowing that I can shoot in this big of an arena and have this many people there because that is a lot of people to shoot in front of and knowing that I can actually do that is quite amazing.”

The Red Deer native felt comfortable and excited to be competing in her home town.

“It’s crazy telling people that I’m from Red Deer and that I’m shooting in my hometown, like I haven’t lived anywhere else in my life so shooting in Red Deer is amazing. It’s an honour to be able to represent my hometown,” says Wiley.

“It’s a lifetime experience and because I’m aging out by the next one, it was such a great honour to just be able to come, represent Red Deer and Alberta, have fun and get to know new people from provinces.”

Wiley will be competing in the team mixed event on Friday.