Still though, archery was always Hagel’s biggest sporting passion, ever since coming across the iconic Jack Whitman –the “father of para archery” – at the University of Illinois in Champaign who inspired her and many non able-bodied people to pick up a bow.
“He was there recruiting everybody so, it was hard to turn down, and he was so famous and such an excellent coach.”
“It really was an opportunity. In my first year, I went to the National Wheelchair Competition in America, and I won. I was a novice and so I thought ‘Well, I guess maybe I should take this up.’”
Whitman’s encouragement led Hagel to Paralympic golds in the old FITA women’s round team – 36 arrows each at 70, 60, 50 and 30 metres – the women’s pairs open at Toronto 1976 and in the women’s double FITA round paraplegic at Stoke Mandeville 1984.
In between her para endeavours, Hagel also attempted to make the able-bodied team for the 1980 Olympic Games, something unheard of in the USA at that time as the Americans with Disabilities Act – a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability – wasn’t introduced until 1990.
Admitting she was “horribly nervous” beforehand, she finished the trials in 25th, unable to qualify for Moscow but it remains one of her proudest moments. The bravery shown at this period laying further claim to her hall of fame place.
New Zealand’s Neroli Fairhall became the first para archer at an Olympics four years later in Los Angeles 1984.
“They tend to use the word pioneer, and, in many ways, I was because there are a lot of firsts that I was involved in,” said Hagel. “I always wanted to do well for myself and for my team as an athlete, things like that but I also wanted the sport to advance for the younger women and girls, juniors coming up behind me.”
