(Submitted photo/Lizzie Janzen)

By Ben Tompkins

World Tournament Champions

Northeast Archer returns with significant hardware after trip to South Africa

Aug 6, 2023 | 8:00 AM

A northeast girl who just graduated from Melfort & Unit Comprehensive Collegiate (MUCC) is returning home from South Africa with some pretty incredible achievements.

Melfort native, Lizzie Janzen recently competed at the Archery World Tournament in Limpopo.

“It was very exciting,” Janzen told northeastNOW. “It was an amazing experience and I came back with friends from all over South Africa, so it’s pretty cool. I came back with like, a lot of friends from there and a lot of like lifelong memories that I’ll never forget.”

Janzen and her group won two silver medals on their own, while Team Canada finished the overall tournament in first place.

Canada had three teams with an adult team, a junior team, and a developmental team.

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Janzen was on the developmental team which scored second place in bullseye and 3D, the adult team got second in bullseye and third in 3D, and the junior team got first in bullseye and third in 3D, which gave the group the best-combined scores.

She explained that she never thought something like that would happen. “Yeah not really, but the people on my team were really great and it was really awesome how well they shot.”

(Submitted photo/Lizzie Janzen)

Throughout the tournament, they shot over 300 arrows, as they worked their way through the round-robin, knockout round, and then the finals.

Janzen added that the team just had each other’s backs, were beyond excited for each other, and bonded like no other.

“We took turns on who was gonna be shooting and we each just supported one another as we shot, which was really cool. When we found out that we made it into knockouts, we all started yelling, like, we were so happy,” she said.

“We got really close during our time in Cape Town, which was before the tournament. We were all doing all fun activities when we started to bond with each other, and when we got to the actual tournament days, we were like the closest team there, even though most of us were just meeting each other there, which was really nice.”

Janzen also found out that she could be invited back to compete again next year, despite the fact that she is no longer in a club, after having just finished her grade 12 year.

She said she has plans to continue to work on her craft in her spare time, however, and that she’s focused on being good enough to return.

“I’m gonna keep practicing and doing archery so that I could possibly get invited back, which would be really nice. I’m just gonna keep shooting in my spare time and just keep practicing to try and become better.”

Janzen now returns back home, where all her supporters are, which includes a handful of new ones.

According to her, a bunch of new people want to join archery now, because of her journey across the world.

That, along with the extra-curricular activities she got to do on her trip, are some of Janzen’s favourite parts, among other things.

(Submitted photo/Lizzie Janzen)

“I think the coolest part about South Africa was seeing the animals that they have because we saw giraffes and elephants and lions and zebras. Also, just all the connections I made, I plan to go back one day to visit the people that I met there.”

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news@northeastnow.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8