PA Olympic Archery coach shares personal experience coaching Casey Kaufhold at Paris Olympics

The Spark

Lancaster County’s Casey Kaufhold made her dreams come true after winning a mixed-team archery bronze medal in the Paris Olympics. Her journey began at the Lancaster Archery Academy in Easter Lampeter Township.

Kaufhold’s archery coach, Heather Pfeil, was with her in Paris as she was living her dreams as an Olympic athlete. Pfeil says watching Kaufold win in real time felt like an out of body experience.

“It was so exciting. There was a large group of us and, you know, just a lot of people from the US there at the event just supporting just the athletes in general in watching other sports, and people chanting USA. And, you know, it was it was very, very cool.”

Pfeil’s discovered her love for archery as a young child in Buffalo, New York. At the Lancaster Archery Academy, she serves as a coach and program coordinator. She’s been coaching Casey for over a decade.

“She was originally, competing at a relatively high level for, for gymnastics. And then decided that she was wanted to do archery. And so, from there, her recreational archery went into a competitive and now a professional level.”

Preparation for the Olympics takes a lot of dedication, passion, and hard work. According to Pfeil, it takes about six trails to qualify for the archery competition in the Olympics. Then the archers’ points are accumulated on performance at those events.

“Then it was, you know, down really to the last event in May of this past year where they name the team. But there's a good bit that goes into that as well, because they have to qualify the spots to have a team in Paris. So, we had to you can either qualify one spot or three spots for the Olympics or men's team. We had one and our women, we had one that Casey had earned at World Championships of last year, which then evolved into the team earning additional two spots. So, they were able to field a full team for the Paris game.”

Pfeil’s dream was to participate in the Olympics, and the Paris Olympics turned her dreams into reality.

“it's very cool is very, a very humbling process. My goal myself was always to be in the Olympics as an athlete, but I naturally found myself, coaching and helping people. So be able to, you know, still be a part of that, that dream and that movement, but in a way that I'm very passionate about and helping others achieve theirs. This is the best combination.”

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