IndigenousTwo members of New Zealand’s national youth archery team are halfway around the world in Winnipeg for the 2025 World Archery Youth Championships hoping to make their fellow Māori proud.Winnipeg hosting World Archery Youth Championships from Aug. 16-24Stefan Richard · CBC News · Posted: Aug 21, 2025 4:04 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoMāori archer Jack Adams from New Zealand shoots his compound bow. (Submitted by Jack Adams)The best youth archers from 64 countries around the world are in Winnipeg this week for the 2025 World Archery Youth Championships.Among them is Jack Adams, an 18-year-old Māori compound archer from Matamata, a town of about 9,500 on New Zealand’s North Island. CBC Indigenous spoke to him about his first visit to Canada. His family comes from the Ngāti Raukawa tribe, which is indigenous to the Waikato region of New Zealand, where Adams’ hometown of Matamata is located.This trip to Winnipeg is Adams’ third International competition and first competition on the world stage, where he’s facing archers from other nations than just in Oceania or Asia. Māori archer Finn Matheson, from Auckland, shoots a recurve bow. (Submitted by Finn Matheson)He first picked up a bow in 2018 and started competing a year later.”It took about three years until I had proper help from everyone. I started meeting a lot of archers from New Zealand that helped me with my gear, helped me coach with coaching,” Adams said.”And right now I’ve got several people that help me with coaching in bow ropes can you add a small note in square brakets explaining what this is?, and they occasionally give me advice on how to approach my own shooting and help me become a better archer.”One of the coaches who works with Adams is Finn Matheson, a 23 year old international recurve archer.Matheson is a coach with Team New Zealand in Winnipeg this week. What were his first impressions of Canada? “Very different landscape. Enjoying being able to see everything for a very long time. New Zealand’s just hills. Love it,” he said. Māori archers compete at World Archery Youth ChampionshipsThe 2025 World Archery Youth Championships are in Winnipeg and two Māori archers are competing.Matheson is from Auckland and with 1.5 million people, it’s the country’s most populous city.He is also Māori, of Ngāpuhi descent. “I’ve always felt very connected to it even when I was younger not knowing that I was a part Māori,” Matheson said of his family’s discovery”But we found out quite recently with an ancestry thing and talking to my grandparents, who in their age were kind of incentivized to hide it and not very talk about it in the area that they were from. And it’s become a lot more accepted recently.”Matheson’s career as a coach with the national team comes with plenty of experience as both a youth archer and now on the senior circuit. After starting archery through one of his cricket coaches, Matheson took to the sport and started competing, making it all the way to the Youth Olympics qualifying event where he finished 2nd and missed qualification by one spot.Kelly Taylor is the chair of the host organizing committee of the Winnipeg championships and was instrumental in bringing the massive gathering to the city and the country. The competition, which is taking place at the Grant Park Soccer Fields, includes 571 athletes under the age of 21. World Archery Youth Championships’ Chairman Kelly Taylor says hosting these high calibre championships is a big win for the city. (Kelly Taylor/Facebook)”It’s the first time that Canada has hosted this event, and it is the largest event on the world archery calendar.” Taylor said.Taylor had doubters that such a high calibre event could be brought to Winnipeg. “They said, ‘No. It’s never gonna happen … You need this much money.’ And they said, ‘You can’t do it,'” Taylor said.”Don’t tell me I can’t do something because here we are.”‘Wide open spirit’ in sportThere was one particular thing that Taylor noticed when the teams started shooting on the fields of this year’s championships.”All the political divisions, all the racial divisions, they melt away, and everyone’s coming together in a spirit of friendship, sportsmanship, and competition,” she said.The competition level is high this week at the championships but Matheson is confident in his team because of the spirit and culture that’s deeply rooted in New Zealand sports.”It’s an incredible wide open spirit that we have all throughout sport. And as you’ve probably seen with things like the All Blacks, they’ll oftentimes start with a haka. Even if the entire team, not being Māori, it’s incredibly deeply rooted.”Adams also carries that Māori pride into competition and every day of his life,”I’m related to the true background and the blood work of New Zealand.”The competition wraps up on August 24.ABOUT THE AUTHORStefan Richard is a reporter for CBC Indigenous, based in Treaty 1 territory. His work has appeared on APTN, NPR, Corus Radio, Native Communications Inc., and Slam Wrestling. Stefan is a proud member of Sagkeeng Anicinabe Nation.
Māori archers aiming high at World Archery Youth Championships in Winnipeg
