Hard work and determination have seen SASI athlete David Barnes and his South Australian counterparts Andrew Kuchel and Pat Coghlan rewarded with selection in the Australian team for the 2019 World Archery Championships in Den Dosch, The Netherlands, between June 10 and 16

A RETURN to top-level competition is starting to pay off for Olympian David Barnes after winning selection in the Australian team which will compete in The Netherlands at the World  Archery Championships.

The titles, between June 10 and 16, will see Australia take a nine-person team to the titles. Barnes, along with Queenslanders Taylor Worth and Ryan Tyack, will compete in the Mens Recurve. Barnes, a SASI Individual Athlete Scholarship holder, teamed with Worth and Tyack to win silver in the Mens Recurve world cup event in Medellin, Colombia, in April. There, they beat world number two The Netherlands in the semi-final before going down to the current Olympic champion Korea in a tight final. The team also accounted for the US and Colombia during the event.

South Australians Andrew Kuchel and Pat Coghlan also made the Mens Compound team heading to The Netherlands.

Barnes, 33, whose mentor and former teammate is (Sydney) Olympic champion Simon Fairweather, stepped away from archery in about 2007 for about 10 years. The 2004 Athens Olympian was looking for a new challenge after an outstanding career as a junior and in early senior ranks. Motivated and with other commitments taken care of Barnes decided the time was right to have another crack at the big time.

The world championships are also a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

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