Complete with bows and arrows in hand, the archers appeared calm and focused, traits essential to this sport. This atmosphere filled the Porsenigama 2025 archery competition held at GOR Pancasila, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), on Sunday (Nov. 16). Over two days, around 40 participants competed across four categories. This year, the archery branch featured the Barebow Division with a 122-inch target set at a distance of 20 meters.
Chair of the Porsenigama 2025 Archery Committee, Bintang Daneswara, explained that the competition included four winning categories: individual qualification, individual elimination, team elimination, and mixed team elimination.
In the individual category, participants underwent a qualification round to determine rankings based on total score. Afterwards, archers proceeded to individual elimination rounds using a knockout system.
“Once an athlete reaches 6 points, they win and advance to the next bracket,” Daneswara explained.
The team category is determined by the accumulated scores of three male or three female archers from the same faculty. Meanwhile, the mixed team category consists of one male and one female archer with the highest individual scores from their faculty, who then compete using an elimination system.
At the top of the leaderboard, the Faculty of Engineering (FT UGM) claimed the overall archery title at Porsenigama 2025 with three gold medals.
The Faculty of Law (FH UGM) followed in second place with one gold and two silver medals, while the Vocational College (SV UGM) secured third place with one gold, one silver, and one bronze.
This achievement cannot be separated from the role of the FT UGM archery coach, Ahmad Alif Naufal. He expressed his pride after witnessing the team’s long journey culminating in consecutive championship wins.
“Since I started coaching in 2022, the first two years delivered no major results, so seeing them win the overall title in both 2024 and 2025 is deeply moving,” he said.
Naufal also shared the challenges of designing an effective training program given the busy class and practicum schedules of engineering students.
Even so, he hopes the FT UGM archery team will continue to grow and remain competitive at the highest levels. He also wishes for archery to become better known as a sport enjoyed by many, whether for recreation or competition.
One of the athletes from FT UGM, Achmad Abrori Alief Thaaha (Biomedical Engineering), also shared his experience participating in Porsenigama since 2022.
This year marked his final appearance before entering his last semester, and it culminated in his winning the men’s individual qualification and men’s team qualification categories.
“I’m definitely happy. Porsenigama is a refreshing break from the many assignments and engineering projects, and Alhamdulillah, I won,” he said.
He added that his interest in archery began in junior high school and has continued to grow with strong support from his family. Looking ahead, he hopes to further develop his skills in other categories such as Standard and Barebow, and to represent UGM in external competitions.
“If possible, I’d like to represent UGM in off-campus tournaments, and I hope archery becomes even more popular, especially among UGM students,” Thaaha concluded.
Author: Hanifah
Editor: Triya Andriyani
Post-editor: Rajendra Arya
Photographs: Porsenigama 2025 Team