The President of World Archery Americas Maria Emma Gaviria says she is "ecstatic" at the sport's return to the Para Pan American Games programme ©Santiago 2023

Maria Emma Gaviria, the President of World Archery Americas has said the organisation is "ecstatic" at the sport's return to the Parapan American Games at Santiago in 2023.

Archers missed out on the opportunity to compete at the last Parapan American Games in Lima in Peru in 2019 after the sport was omitted from the event's programme, despite it debuting in the able-bodied equivalent the Pan American Games two years ago.

Gaviria said she was delighted by the move to reinstate archery to the Parapan American Games, as she described the sport as embodying the Paralympic Movement.

"Archery embodies the spirit of the Paralympic Movement and is a sport that everyone can access and in which everyone can compete as equals," said Gaviria.

"We are ecstatic that this return to the programme of the Para Pan American Games will give para archers across the continent an equal opportunity to compete in the highest level of multisport competition in the Americas once again."

Archery was a vital part of the Paralympic Movement when it began in the 1940s.

It was used as a rehabilitation activity at the hospital in Stoke Mandeville in England at which Sir Ludwig Guttmann, the founder of the Paralympic Games, worked with wounded war veterans.

Archery featured at the Parapan American Games in Toronto in Canada in 2015, where 28 athletes from six nations competed in four individual events – the men’s and women’s, recurve and compound open categories.

A total of 48 archers are set to compete at Santiago 2023, with details of specific events, competition categories and the distribution of quotas still to be finalised.

Alongside archery, the 17 sports that make up the Santiago 2023 Parapan American Games programme are athletics, badminton, boccia, cycling, football 5-a-side, football 7-a-side, goalball, judo, powerlifting, shooting, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.

A notable omission from the programme is sitting volleyball, which featured at Lima 2019 but is not on the schedule for Santiago 2023.

"The sports programme will be a wonderful spectacle that will enhance the performances of everyone who comes to fight for a medal," said Santiago 2023 chief executive officer Felipe de Pablo.

"The athletes are, and always will be, at the heart of our Games."