by You could say this was my first time doing archery, if you could call it that. I sat with three fingers around my arrow – one on top and two below – I raised my hands above my shoulders and tentatively began to pull back. I pulled until the arrow was practically touching my face.
With each tug, I felt the resistance in the hip arch up and the tension rise in my right shoulder. As I stood there, holding the bow at full draw, I immediately began to shake, making it impossible to hold the wooden structure still, despite Robin’s best efforts. Lead Hood.
Over my other shoulder, two of Britain’s greatest female archers – Ella Gibson and Penny Healey, who I was guiding through the steps at Archery GB’s £3.6 million performance facility at Lilleshall National Sports Center – gave me the green light.
“That’s great … okay, let’s go,” Gibson shouted, with the same encouragement an adult would use when teaching a toddler to walk. The arrow flew from my bow and thudded into the target face, located all 10 meters in front of me. A dozen tries later and I was no closer to landing the arrow towards the centre.
Gibson is lucky enough to call this a full-time job. The 23-year-old is the world No. Outdoors, she throws 50 meters – five times my miserable distance – with an 80 centimeter target face.
After a five minute discussion of the various components on the bow, which Gibson describes as “technical things”, my brain is already broken. “I start at 60 pounds, but at full pull I’m only about 20 pounds,” says Gibson. “So it’s a very different bow at work. Because we have much less at full draw, there is much more weight on our bows to stabilize us, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to aim, there would be no resistance.”
Gibson discovered her natural talent as a teenager when her local club, Deer Park Archers, offered taster sessions at her secondary school in Cirencester. Within weeks, she finished second at a regional shootout in breaststroke, before switching to medley when she was 16. Within two years, she was competing on the international stage.
Last year she enjoyed a breakthrough season, winning three of the four World Cups she competed in and qualifying for the World Games. This year, she can count a European Games silver medal and another World Cup crown among her impressive list of achievements. “Last year was really unexpected because before that I hadn’t won a single World Cup, let alone three,” says Gibson.
For Gibson, winning is key. Ninety percent of its income comes from prize money, which is supplemented by sponsorship from bow companies. She was naturally disappointed to see a recent bid to include compound archery in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics rejected by the International Olympic Committee.
“It kind of sucks,” says Gibson. “It would involve funding and support. We don’t get UK Sport funding, so nobody gets paid for anything and we have to fund ourselves for most of the tours we do. It cost £2,000 to take part in the World Cup. Archery GB does as much as they can with the money they have, but it’s not much.”
Due to his status as a non-Olympic athlete, Gibson will not be spending much time at GB Archery’s state-of-the-art shooting range. Instead, she takes advantage of a home practice range, set in the unusual setting of an ice cream factory. The Gibson family owns Dolcetti ice cream in Cirencester and 18 months ago, when the company moved into a larger warehouse, her father built a 25 meter range inside.
“It’s perfect because inside, I shot 18 meters,” says Gibson. “Outside, it’s 50 meters. So if it’s really bad weather I can shoot 25 meters on half the size of the target face, and it’s so aim-wise, it feels the same.”
With her dyed hair and thick eyeliner, Healey, who made a comeback at last year’s World Indoor Series Final, looks more like a rock star than an archer, but is one of the brightest young talents in the sport.
The 18-year-old shot an indoor distance of 70 meters at a 122cm target (the equivalent of trying to hit a DVD the width of a football field) and won gold at the European Grand Prix in April, before her arrival in the country of his first World Cup. title in Antalya, Turkey, the following month, which meant she rose to No. 1 in world ranking.
Another gold medal-winning performance at the European Games ensured Great Britain recycled a women’s Olympic quota place for Paris 2024 but she still holds a junior world record for the qualifying round of 60 darts 18 meters at last year’s British Indoor Championships. career highlight.
“I was struggling with confidence, but when I shot the European record I was like, ‘Okay, cool. I’m good about this’,” says Healey. “I’ve struggled a bit with my mental health and archery helps with that. It was always a comfort.”
I could relate to Healey’s point. It wasn’t until I aimed at the last time that I fully understood the peace of mind that this extremely technical sport provides. I focused on my breathing. I zeroed in on my target, determined to pull my arrow from my bow. I still lost – but I had a new appreciation for archery.
