Humboldt is home to another provincial champion, as Kenny Nienaber collected the provincial championship in competitive archery at the 2017 Outdoor Provincial Target Championship.
“I was pretty excited about target. I shot really well this year I did a lot of practice so I felt pretty pumped up,” says Nienaber.
Nienaber won the provincial title in record fashion as he finished with a new provincial record.
Nienaber notes that it means a lot to be able to say he is not only a provincial champion but also a provincial record holder.
“I put a lot of hours in a week practicing the same routines over and over and getting the perfect form. So to say that I hit a milestone, one of my goals, it’s kind of fulfilling. I was pretty pumped up about it.”
In addition to capturing the provincial title in target, Nienaber also claimed a silver medal in field.
Heading into the provincial championship, Nienaber had a target on his back as he was the defending champion, and says he felt a little more pressure this time around.
“When I first started the competitive cycle I was the guy that nobody knew and there was no pressure going into it… as you won something now people are kind of expecting you to win.”
Nienaber’s win booked him a spot at the 2017 Canadian Target Championships in Brossard, Que. Aug. 8-13.
Nienaber notes he is unsure whether or not he will be able to attend the national championships, but says if he does he hopes to have a good showing.
“Top ten in Canada would be a real great goal of mine for this year. I would love to get on a podium in Nationals and I know I have it in me to do so, so it’s going to take a little hard work.”
Heading into the national championship, he notes it will have the same kind of feel as his first provincial championship.
“You don’t know what to expect and who’s shooting and get a kind of feel of the land a little bit.”
The rise up the ranks of competitive archery has been a fast one for Nienaber who has only been competing for a couple of years, and says a lot of it comes down to his training regime.
“I’ll shoot 100 to 200 arrows a day five days a week just perfecting the form of archery. So it just takes a lot of practice, I put a lot of time into it. I’m passionate about archery so I believe that if you’re passionate about something you can really make strides fast.”
Seeing such a fast rise has been exciting, noted Nienaber, who says he set a five-year goal to win a national championship before being forced to move into the senior group, noting as a member of the senior group he is competing against archers much younger than he is.
“I’m really excited about the fact that you’re not just competing against guys your age, you’re going against young guys and there’s a very wide group. So it means a lot that in such a short time that I was able to achieve the goals earlier and maybe set up some other goals that I didn’t think were possible.”
Nienaber notes that while he has only been competing for a couple of years, his experience in bow hunting extends through most of his life noting that he started shooting a bow as a young kid when his dad made him a willow bow, before slowly graduating to a fibre glass bow, and eventually to a compound bow.
Making the jump from bow hunting to archery was a natural progression, says Neinaber, who notes he was not quenching his thirst for archery through bow hunting since it was only one season a year.
“I just love to shoot and I thought well maybe I’ll take in some archery events, some 3D events just so I could shoot all year round and what I found was I was kind of addicted to the sport of archery… I just find it as a relaxation to shoot a couple hundred arrows. It’s like meditation so I’ll shoot every day it kind of calms me down.”
Looking ahead, Nienaber’s next year is a busy one as he plans to compete in provincial events, as well as National and even some International ones in North Dakota and Las Vegas.
In addition to having his own success Nienaber says one of his goals is to start an archery club in Humboldt, noting he is currently teaching young archers at his home club in Viscount.
