Young Scottish archer Cameron Radigan from Ayrshire has been selected by Archery GB to represent Great Britain at the upcoming World Archery Championships to be held in Dubai on 19-27 February. Cameron will be joined there by his fellow Scot, the experienced Nathan Macqueen with strong Scottish representation in the squad of 11 travelling. Â
Nathan, from Polbeth, has represented GB at two Paralympics Games at Rio and Tokyo and has twice represented GB at World Championships so is a well-known face in the sport. A profile of Nathan can be found here. Cameron, however, will be making his debut in Dubai and his selection is the culmination of a huge amount of dedication and commitment to training – against a backdrop of difficult situations – not least the recent Covid pandemic which made accessing regular quality training opportunities hugely challenging. Â
Cameron is a remarkable young man from Galston in East Ayrshire who has been involved in archery ever since he participated in some sessions during many happy family holidays in Haven parks. When he was two Cameron was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour in his left calf muscle and was given a 10% survival chance by doctors at the time. He fought hard through the intense periods of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and the risk of additional tumours elsewhere in his body which remains under regular review to this day. Cameron had a further life-changing decision to make in 2018 when he decided to amputate his lower left leg in order to give himself the mobility he sought to improve his life and his opportunity in the sport he loves. When we tell you that only eleven days after his amputation Cameron was competing at Lilleshall it goes some way to illustrating the character of this extraordinary high-performance athlete. Cameron passionately believes that a disability should not prevent him competing at the highest level in archery and he is living proof of that very assertion. Â
Like many performance athletes 2021 was a very difficult year for Cameron, with huge amounts of uncertainty around training and competition opportunities. He experienced first the elation of being selected for the Scottish Commonwealth Championships Training Squad in India before the disappointment arrived of the cancellation of the event due to rising Covid cases in the country. Cameron remains pragmatic and has redoubled his effort into using the time to upgrade his equipment and access more training time and further support from key individuals around Britain. Â
Cameron is currently making the difficult transition from being at the top of the tree in the junior rankings to navigating through the open ranks of the sport. He is doing this with aplomb as his improving ranking will testify. Â
In October 2021 Cameron was invited to be part of the Performance Archery WCP Potential Programme where he is supported by the GB Para Team and Staff. This recognition by Archery GB is another step forward for Cameron who has worked tirelessly to reach this landmark achievement.Â
Cameron keeps people updated on his informative and entertaining blog which can be accessed here. Â