The official Archery Australia Rankings recently awarded State and National Level rankings to Australia-based ace archer, Farhad F. Elavia – in the second position at the State Level and the eleventh position at the National Level. Currently the only competitive Parsi shooter in Australia doing our community proud, Farhad Elavia represents the state of New South Wales and the Northern Archers of Sydney Club, participating in the 50 years plus category, in the Target Archery discipline, which involves shooting at stationary, circular targets set at specific distances, within 90 metres.

Over the last six years, Farhad has participated in over two hundred tournaments, including Club, Inter-Club, Regional, National and International tourneys. He has been deeply involved in the sport and works hard at it and is well known amongst the Archery fraternity in Australia. In addition to Target Archery he also enjoys and excels at Field Archery, where you shoot at stationary circular targets of different sizes, set at varying distances, heights and angles around a course of natural terrain. It calls for additional skills including distance judging, shooting uphill and downhill, dealing with changing light conditions and challenging terrain – collectively known as fieldcraft.

After his family migrated to Australia in 2012, Farhad’s journey as an archer started when he took up archery as a father-son activity, with his son, Zahan, in Canberra.  He then relocated to Sydney and after a few years joined a club and immersed himself completely in the sport, finding a job as Marketing Director at Abbey Archery Pvt Ltd, the largest archery company in the Oceania region. He has also served as Secretary at the Northern Archers of Sydney Inc. (New South Wales) and is a founding member of the ‘Sydney Bowhunters’ Club.

Sharing his delight and his passion for Archery with Parsi Times, Farhad said, “Archery is a sport that instils patience, confidence and focus in an individual, like no other sport. It can be played alone or with a team. It is also the only sport where beginners and world champions stand shoulder to shoulder on the shooting line at competitions. This means that you could have a novice shooting alongside a world champion and not feel intimidated or nervous, because everyone is equal on the line. It’s a beautiful sport and I am glad to be a part of it!”

Farhad had earlier participated in the Australian Nationals, where he stood ninth in the country in his age category and fifty-first in the Open Category, from amongst 350 archers in Australia.