Focus on ... Archery!

In our aim to showcase as many sports as possible, we’re starting at the beginning of our alphabet with A and bringing you archery! Read on to learn more about this sport which has its roots in days of old when bows and arrows were used in combat! Luckily, these days we’re talking more Olympic and Paralympic Games than The Hunger Games …

 
 

We asked former world number one in the women’s compound rankings, Alexis Ruiz from USA (pictured above), Sara Lopez, fellow compound archer from Colombia and six-time British Olympic recurve archer, Alison Williamson for their views on why archery really hits the bullseye for them.

Archery facts

There are two main types of bow that people can shoot in competitions and these are compound and recurve.

On these clips you can see the differences in their bows.

One of the main archery competitions is target archery. There are indoor and outdoor tournaments. Recurves shoot outdoor tournaments at 70 metres, but compounds shoot outdoor tournaments at 50 metres. All bow types shoot at the same distance of 18 metres for indoor tournaments.

Another type of archery competition is field. All bow types can shoot this tournament. The targets are set up at different distances, and they can be at angles on hills.

Scoring is based on which coloured ring the arrow hits with the centre target earning the highest points.

Starting archery

Alexis, Alison and Sara started archery thanks to family members. Sara’s brother was already an archer and she was introduced to the sport one day when her dad collected her from volleyball practice to then go to collect her brother. She fell in love with the sport there and then!

Alison’s parents both had archery as a hobby and actually founded their local club. Alison would sit in her pram (from a safe distance!) and watch them practice and when she was old enough, rather than sit and be bored watching, she started to have a go herself. Alexis was influenced by family too but then had a go at a school, quickly realising that this was the sport for her.

The best way to start is to find your local club and see if you can try it out. You shouldn’t have to buy your own bow and arrows at that stage. As you can see it’s a real family sport so take mum, dad or your carer along too!

Training and practice

Archery training consists of shooting many arrows every day with the goal of improving accuracy and distance each time. Alexis explains more, ‘I mainly focus on target because that is the discipline of archery that I do. I train outdoors in the summer when we have all the outdoor tournaments, and I train indoors when we have all the indoor tournaments. I like shooting field archery as well because it is slightly different. I like that the targets are at different distances because I have to make sure I do everything correctly. I also do aiming exercises a few times a week. I shoot a couple hundred arrows every day, and I work out when I get home.’

Training in the gym is important too for overall fitness but also to work on archery specific muscles. Alison recalls being told to get out of bed early by her dad to go for a run but training with dumb bells in the gym too.

Alison was competing in the adult competitions whilst only a teenager. GB Archery was one of the earliest adopters of psychologists to help their athletes. The psychologists help with coping techniques and relaxation skills.

Sara Lopez’s story

Colombian Sara started archery aged 13 thanks to her brother and became the only girl on the team. There weren’t many girls shooting in the country as a whole in compound archery and the junior category didn’t exist. As a result, Sara was competing against adults from a very young age which improved her archery skills very quickly. Her dream was to compete internationally, but she knew she had a long way to go.

Sara always knew that she wanted to be a professional archer but that was sometimes difficult going to an all-girls’ school. When her classmates were going to the movies, mall or parties, she would be training and sometimes she was teased for that. She stood strong though and had two best friends who helped and supported her in her archery ambitions.

 
 

As she was the only girl, she only knows training with boys. ‘I consider all of them my brothers; since I was the only girl, they are very protective of me and we literally grew up together, so those guys are my second family and I love them with all my heart.’

Like many young athletes, Sara has had to balance training with schoolwork and sometimes it’s hard to know what to do …

‘In 2012 I got into medical school, so my focus was on my career. Later that year we had nationals. I was in my second semester and I decided to go to nationals; there was a small chance of getting on the team if I shot some good scores at nationals. A lot of teachers told me that if I decided to go (it was only 2 days) I would miss my semester and fail. I would have to repeat it.

It was a hard decision, but I decided to go. I broke three national records and finally got into the team! But the national coaches and the people at the national federation decided I was too young and too new to be on the team, so they gave the spot to somebody else.

I was devastated. I failed my semester. I didn’t get into the national team, and I felt like I had wasted my time.

One month after that the national federation called me and told me that they wanted to test how I would do in the team and told me I was going to my first world cup (Antalya, Turkey 2013)! I went to my first world cup and won the first two gold medals ever in the history of my sport in Colombia!

After that day my life completely changed: I realised that I was actually a good archer and I decided to keep studying and keep shooting.’

That is dedication but that’s how much Sara loves archery. She has some fantastic encouragement for girls when it comes to sport:

I would encourage them not to just try archery but to try any sports that may interest them. There’s no such thing as "sports for men and for women"! Just imagine where I would be right now if I had heard all of those people who told me when I was 13 that archery was for boys.

Life is about experiences, try and try and try until you fall in love with a sport and then try as hard as you can to be the best one and change history. We need lots of girls with the strength to change the world.

Alison Williamson’s story

Alison has always been sporty and at secondary school was involved in all the sports’ teams. She was very competitive, wanted to improve with her sights set on beating her dad (who, by now, was in the British archery team himself), the Olympic Games and World Championships. Her psychologist helped her by writing these down goals and helping her to figure out how she would achieve them.

During her teenage years, Alison admits that she resented going to competitions every weekend while her friends went shopping: ‘Archery wasn’t all consuming,’ she tells us, ‘but it sometimes felt like it.’ Her parents helped her to stay on track with her goals and prioritise what was important.

Girls and boys do archery alongside each other and she’d known the boys from archery since she was a little girl, watching on the side lines and later going to competitions so she didn’t feel embarrassed shooting alongside them. ‘In archery, there are all shapes and sizes, and you wear what you like so there’s no need to feel body conscious which makes it a great sport for girls.’

Aged 14, Alison’s first international competition was in Italy. Alison hadn’t travelled much before but she fell in love with discovering new cultures, foods and meeting new people. She realised that pursuing a career in archery could help her achieve her competitive goals as well as satisfy her appetite for travel.

At 16, she joined the senior team and then whilst at a competition in Barcelona, Alison met someone that would change the course of her life and send her off to Arizona State University, a well-known college for archery success. She gained a degree in social work whilst being trained by the best and competing in US competitions.

In 1992, she was shooting for a place in the GB Olympic archery squad and succeeded! Alison was off to her first of six Olympics, this one back in Barcelona.

She went on to win an individual bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics. At the World Championships she won an individual silver medal in 1999 and a bronze in the team event in 2007 and at the Commonwealth Games in 2010 she won silver in both the team and individual recurve events. A fantastic sporting career.

Alexis Ruiz’s story

Alexis has worked very hard over almost a decade to make it to world number one in compound archery. She was still considered a ‘rookie’ in 2019 before making it to the world number one spot in July that year.

Her dedication started young when she took part in her first tournament and loved it! During her teenage years, her eyes were on the prize and she continued to focus on her goals of being a professional archer. Goals are fundamental to her approach to the sport – in the gym she sets herself goals and when she achieves them, she sets more. ‘I always have something to work for, but I make sure the goal is realistic.’

The archery community has been welcoming and friendly and Alexis says that when she is practising, ‘I feel happy and at peace. There are some days when I am not having a good day of shooting, so I do get frustrated sometimes. However, I try to remember what I like about archery and why I continue to shoot. I use archery as a stress reliever.’

 
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As you can imagine, Alexis is a keen advocate of archery and encourages all girls to give it a try! ‘It is very fun. Archery is a sport that any person can do. In archery, all different heights, weights, coordination skills, and strengths can all compete equally. It is an individual sport, so you can focus on yourself and not worry about criticism coming from others.’

Huge thanks to Sara, Alison and Alexis for sharing their journeys and their passion for archery!

We hope you enjoyed this piece on archery. Why not be more Katniss Everdeen and give archery a go? Next time it’s B. Let us know if your sport needs the spotlight from We are Girls in Sport!

Alexis Ruiz images - thumbnail and main - credit Sarah Boyd

Sara Lopez images - credit Sara Lopez