Thanks to his excellent precision, concentration and determination, Martín Galarza managed to add this Monday a new and important chapter in the history of archery in San Luis. The Villamercedino, who has been part of the national team since the end of 2019, stood out in the selective developed in Buenos Aires and became the first goalkeeper in the province to participate in a World Cup. The appointment will be in July in the Colombian city of Medellin, where Galarza will represent Argentina with the great hope of performing well and winning a medal.
“Last year a payroll was made in which I stayed. There were a couple of concentrations and the issue of the trip to Colombia was made effective. They gave 3 places and they made this selective (organized by the Argentine Archery Federation) and thank God It went very well for me. I had to shoot on Sunday and Monday. On Sunday I was second and on Monday I finished third, 2 points behind second”, recalled Martín, with great happiness after the experience lived at the National Sports Development Center (Cenade ).
Juan Pablo Dabove also participated in the selective, who could not get the ticket in Senior Recurve Bow.
And he added: “This is the first time that I am going out to compete with the National Team. I still have not fallen because the truth is that I did not expect it. I had trained a lot, since this year there is a very good level. But it came from an injury in the elbow, from which luckily I recovered quite well. I thought I’d play it all, I started loading the bow to stabilize it, I trained harder and I considered putting up a fight. You can see that the other guys got the nerves and I got gave”.
Martín, 42, began practicing archery in 2014. The first steps were at the Villa Mercedes Archery School with Fortunato Vaccarezza, with a recurve bow. “I started shooting in school, badly like everyone else, and I read and researched. Then I started to compete and it caught me. At first I shot with a recurve bow until I decided to sell it, because I am also left-handed and there are not many left-handed bows in the market. There a boy from Comodoro Rivadavia called me, he told me he had a compound bow and if I was interested in changing it. I answered that it was fine and when I tried it I said: ‘This is mine”.
This is the first time that I am going out to compete with the National Team. I haven’t fallen yet because the truth is I didn’t expect it”. Martín Galarza, goalkeeper.
The representative of Arqueros Puntanos (from Villa Mercedes), who was also the first San Luiseño to reach the national team, carries out a rigorous work routine. He trains daily from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., while at night he perfects his shooting technique at his house, in order to reduce the margin of error as much as possible.
“It is a mental sport, you have to visualize a lot and be focused. Generally it is shooting, a lot of technique, and the set-up of the bow and arrow. This is more based on repeatability, until it becomes automatic,” he said.
Martin enjoys the present. He lives a dream with his eyes open and, now, his goal is to achieve a good performance in Colombia (from July 18 to 24), in a highly competitive category such as Senior Compound. “The World Cup is going to go to goalkeepers who are cracks, professionals who dedicate themselves to that and generally do not make mistakes,” he closed.
