PHOTO COURTESY WORLD ARCHERY
U.S. Army veteran Jason Tabanksy won the gold medal for Men’s Individual W1 Para Archery in his debut at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games on Sept. 1. Despite Tabansky’s disability, through his love for archery and drive for success, he stays determined to keep aiming for the stars.
Tabansky’s journey in archery began after he was gifted a bow while he was stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
“I had never shot archery in my life,” the 41-year-old said. “All I knew was fishing growing up in Brownsville. This was a whole new hobby that I had just picked up. So, I got that old bow, got it set up, and I would go practice every once in a while, just so I was good enough to hunt, but that was the extent of it.”
After getting orders to move to Germany from Alabama, Tabansky realized he would have to put his new hobby on pause.
“I get out to Germany and I find out bowhunting out there is illegal,” he said. “I had my bow stuffed in a case in my basement. [I] didn’t even open that case for four years.”
In 2015, Tabansky suffered a life-altering spinal cord injury and lost his ability to walk. He found himself in San Antonio at the Audie Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital.
“They have a spinal cord unit where I’m doing all my rehab, and I start getting involved with the [recreation] therapy and all these adaptive sports, you know, learn about them,” he said.
A recreation therapist suggested Tabansky try archery, believing it was something he would be good at. However, Tabansky was not confident in the idea, at first.
“At the time, I wasn’t very strong,” he said. “I didn’t have really good use of my hands. I have no balance from my chest down. So, I said, ‘There’s no way that I’m going to be able to shoot archery with all these deficits.’ And there were two guys sitting there, and they both looked at me and smirked and said, ‘Man, we don’t ever want to hear you say never or that it’s impossible for you to do something.’”
The two men found a way to strap Tabansky in a wheelchair and set up a bow light enough for him to draw back. From there, they took Tabansky to the National Veterans Wheelchair Games, signed him up for archery, and he ended up winning the tournament in his division.
After doing well in an event for veterans with disabilities called the Valor Games, Tabansky decided competitive para archery was something he was going to take more seriously.
“In 2017, I got classified as a para archer officially, and that’s when I decided I was going to pursue this at the Paralympic level,” he said.
PHOTO COURTESY WORLD ARCHERY
Originally, Tabansky fell short at a last-chance qualifier for the Paralympics. But after a last-minute dropout from Australia, he was informed he was next in line to take the slot.
“It was a burst of various emotions,” Tabansky said. “All the heartache and sacrifice had paid off. I was thinking, ‘OK, now it’s official. I’m going to Paris.’”
With his late entry into the Games, Tabansky went into the para archery event with no expectations.
“I had nothing to lose,” he said. “I just wanted to go out there and do the best [I could].”
Competing against 12 other para archers in his division, Tabansky steadily climbed the elimination bracket, facing increasingly skilled competitors.
“When I got to the quarterfinals, I shot against my friend David from the Czech Republic, and this guy is like the LeBron James of W1,” he said. “This was his fifth Paralympics and he medaled at each one of the previous four.”
Even against the skilled competition, Tabansky won all the elimination rounds and found himself in the final round–the gold medal match.
He was up against Chinese para archer Han Guifei, who at the time was ranked No 1. in the world in the division.
“It went all the way to the end, arrow for arrow,” Tabansky said. “We were staying pretty close to each other. I was ahead by one point and he shoots an eight [on] his last arrow. I looked up at these jumbotrons and it said ‘eight to win.’ All I have to do is hit one of the red circles and I’m going to win.”
He said his hand was shaking.
“I got into my shot and all I could think was, ‘Jason, just put it in the middle,’” Tabansky said. “As soon as I saw my sight touch the yellow, I let go of that arrow faster than I ever have in my life. I hit a 10 and everything kind of came together.”
Winning gold for Tabansky was not only a personal accomplishment but also a chance to represent the place in which he grew up.
“Whenever I got to the Games, it meant a lot for me to represent people from [the Rio Grande Valley],” said Tabansky, who now resides in Boerne. “A lot of people don’t have a lot of opportunities that some of us might have, especially being up in Central Texas.”
Some students at UTRGV would like to see athletic opportunities for all students.
“If there was more accessibility, I wouldn’t mind joining any sports because to me, putting myself out there is no big deal,” said elementary education junior Jeselle Ochoa, a member of the Student Accessibility Council at UTRGV.
Criminal justice senior Aaron Worthington, the council’s historian, shared a similar sentiment.
“I do believe that every person, regardless of whether they have a disability or not, should participate in what they want to do, including athletics,” Worthington said.
Tabansky has worked with various foundations that coach veterans, athletes and children with disabilities, aiming to give them the same opportunity of excelling in athletics despite their conditions.
“One thing I like sharing with people is that there’s all types of injuries and events that [can] happen that change their lives,” he said. “Some people feel like their life is over, like their dreams, their passions are now gone. My message to everybody is always, ‘Life is not over.’ You still have a lot of life to live, you just have to do things a little differently. There might be something out there that will give someone a new purpose, a new drive, a new outlook in life.”
