Update: White was eliminated from the men's individual recurve open archery finals Wednesday morning — having been out-shot by silver medalist Lukasz Ciszek from Poland. White claimed a 17th place finish in the event for his Paralympic debut.
Before he even raises his bow for a shot at a gold medal on Wednesday, Jordan White will have already made history as the youngest archer to ever be selected to represent the United States at the Paralympics.
The 15-year-old from Cedar Park is one of six archers representing the red, white and blue at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. He's also the youngest member of Team USA to compete in the Games this year.
"Even just making the Paralympic team means the world to me," White said. "I worked very hard for it, and it’s a major accomplishment. I’m really hoping to take home a medal, but I just wanna have fun with it."
The Paralympic Games is a series of international sports competitions for athletes with disabilities that take place every four years, in the same year as the Olympic Games.
White, who was born with his right leg shorter than his left, said he first discovered archery about four years ago at a local YMCA camp.
He said he knew he'd fallen in love with the sport after he secured a second place finish at his first archery tournament.
"There was one specific arrow in a tie-break round when I hit a 10 and won the match, and I knew from there, that was a sport I was able to compete in," White said. "I haven’t been able to compete in a lot of other sports because of my disability, but when I hit that 10, I knew that I wanted to pursue archery and replicate that feeling ... that success over and over again."
Scoring methods can differ depending on the type of archery event or competition, but generally speaking, an archer scores the highest number of points in a competition by hitting the innermost ring of the target, or a "10."
Since then, White has managed to become the holder of six national Para Archery records for competitors under the ages 18 and 21.
It wasn't until about a year ago, though, that White began to set his sights on the Paralympics.
"I had a surgery last year on my leg that took me out of state and in recovery for three months," he said. "After that surgery, I told myself, ‘Hey, you’re gonna go to the Paralympics. You’re gonna recover. And you’re gonna really succeed in archery.'"
Then, come this May, White learned he'd successfully qualified to represent the United States in Paris.
"Generally speaking, anyone can try-out for any team, and we have trial events that are purely score based," said Sarah Boyd, a communications specialist at USA Archery. "So for the Paralympics, we had three stages of competition, and archers had to compete at all three and advance through all three to be nominated to the team for the number of spots we had in each competition category."
Boyd said White is by far the youngest of the six archers selected to compete for Team USA in Paris this year.
"He’s also the youngest Paralympic archer in U.S. history — possibly world history, but we did not get that officially confirmed," she said. "And then Eric Bennett on our team, who is 50, is just shy of being the oldest athlete in all of Team USA in Paris. So we’ve got a big range of experience and ages."
White, like his teammate Bennett, is competing in the men's individual recurve open event in Paris.
"There are different severities of disabilities, and different classifications for that, so that everyone is on an equal and level playing field at the Paralympics," White said. "In recurve, we have to feel all the weight in our bow, and we shoot at a longer distance on a bigger target."
White, who is currently ranked 27th out of the 30 competitors after his first round of shooting in Paris last week, is set to compete in elimination rounds starting on Wednesday.
The elimination rounds will be determined by using a "set system," Boyd said.
"They shoot head-to-head matches. Each archer will shoot three [arrows] in a row," she said. "The highest score of those three arrows get two 'set points.' If they tie, they split (the points) at one each. And whoever doesn’t win gets zero. So the first (archer) to six 'set points' wins a match."
Boyd said the elimination rounds are intense, but the set system allows archers some flexibility.
"It’s kinda cool cause it does give the underdog a shot. You know, you can have a bad shot, and you’re not out," she said. "We’ve seen a lot of people come in ranked number one in the world and go out early. Or dark horse competitors come back and win the whole thing."
White's grandparents plan to host a watch party on Wednesday from 12 to 2 p.m. at Whitestone Brewery in Cedar Park in hopes that White will advance to quarterfinals.
Regardless of how he performs this week, however, Boyd said she's impressed by the attention White has been able to garner for the sport.
"What Jordan is doing — no matter how he finishes at the games this year — the exposure that he is bringing to the sport and the light he is shedding for young people with disabilities who may not think they have a place in sport, I feel like he is showing so many people that they can do it. That archery can be a place for them," she said.
