New Stars

 

In order to enhance and optimise resources and to discover more young athletes with potential, the Hong Kong Archery Association participated in the feeder programmes in 2012-13 and established the current Hong Kong Youth Archery Squad Team 1 and Team 2 to improve the standards of local young athletes, build their team spirit and sense of belonging, and help them actively prepare for overseas competitions through constant and regular training. This issue features interviews with two rising archery athletes, who are both representatives of the Hong Kong Youth Archery Squad. Why are they fond of archery? And what is their daily training like?

Interview with Archery Athlete Tsui Chun Kit

Chun Kit started to learn archery in Form 3 because he thought it was a special and cool sport.  In the beginning, he only wanted to try something different and had never taken it seriously.  Today, he is a rising archery athlete after six years of persistent training.

A resolute change that led to outstanding results

When asked about why archery was so attractive to him, Chun Kit said that archery was actually a very personal and static sport that required repetition of the same shooting movements.  The most important training was to keep shooting, sometimes for as long as five or six hours at a time.  The more he practised, the better his skills became  and the more stable his shooting would be.  To add more fun to it, he would practise with different paper targets and change the order of aiming at the targets.  When he is not at the archery range, he meditates on the movements of shooting an arrow so that he can quickly set the right postures once he gets the bow in hands.

Chun Kit practised and competed with the recurve bow throughout secondary school but his performance was always mediocre.  It was only when he started using the compound bow after graduating from secondary school that he revealed his talent  and his coach recognised that the compound bow was more suitable for him.  Since then, he has been competing with the compound bow and has achieved great results in competitions.  According to Chun Kit, the design of the compound bow makes it easier for athletes to control, and one’s mental state and concentration are the key to fewer errors in competitions.  One missed shot is sometimes all it takes to lose the competition instantly.

Letting go of fears to stand strong

Chun Kit has always insisted on participating in various competitions as each competition is an experience of growth and an opportunity to identify his own shortcomings.  He said that he was actually very nervous in each competition. This made him tense and prone to making mistakes.  Through participating in competitions, he has learned how to relax himself and focus his attention on coping with the environment.  For future challenges, he will do his best in competitions against elite athletes of different regions at the Asian Games.  He hopes to vigorously promote archery in schools by organising different types of archery interest classes and competitions to introduce new blood to the local archery scene and boost the development of archery in Hong Kong.

Chun Kit’s Profile:

Chun Kit has achieved outstanding results in recent years and has repeatedly broken Hong Kong’s archery records and the records in the Hong Kong youth division.  He has represented Hong Kong in overseas competitions on multiple occasions with satisfactory results.  At the second leg of the 2019 Archery Asia Championships held in Taipei, Taiwan on 1-6 August 2019, he defeated Jafar, the 67^th-ranked representative of the Malaysian team, to become the second runner-up in the men’s compound bow bronze medal match.  As at the submission date of this article, he ranked 105^th globally according to the World Archery Federation.

Interview with Archery Athlete Lucien Law

Interview with Lucien Law of North District Archery Club

When Lucien started secondary school, he decided to join an after-school interest class organised by the school in order to integrate into the new environment sooner.  A lover of challenges, Lucien thought that sports like basketball and football were ordinary and he was determined to try something new.  That was why he joined the archery club to get a taste of the sport.

Persevering in practice and achieving great results

Initially, Lucien only intended to try a new sport.  However, he gradually discovered the attraction of archery as he learned more about the sport from the school coach and participated in after-school drills.  After completing extra training in the summer interest class, Lucien joined the school archery team on recommendation by the coach to compete in matches.  Lucien now practises three to four days a week.  To ensure that his studies will not be affected, he has arranged to practise for one to two hours after school at the school’s rooftop archery range.  Due to his outstanding results, Lucien also helps his juniors by giving them advice to inspire their interest so as to encourage wider participation in the sport.

Proficient in the use of the recurve bow, Lucien finds it fascinating because it demands the use of the whole body and not only the arms.  He has to stay very focused every time he shoots an arrow.  The purpose of the repetitive shooting practice is to reinforce his muscle memory so that he can shoot an arrow with the same motion every time.  In addition to shooting practice, he also lifts weights as part of his regular training to strengthen his muscles and to improve his balance and coordination so as to maintain consistent performance in competitions.

Representing Hong Kong in the World Youth Championships

Lucien admits that his current focus is on the 2021 World Youth Championships and that he wants to represent and win glory for Hong Kong again.  For him, the biennial World Youth Championships is a large competitive platform for elites from all over the world.  It is also a rare opportunity to experience life abroad.  Lastly, he believes that archery helps one learn how to think calmly and improves one’s concentration.  He hopes that  more resources will be allocated to support archery and attract more people to participate in the sport, as well as to train outstanding local athletes to prepare them for international competitions such as the Olympics, thereby improving the quality of Hong Kong’s athletic representatives.  The LCSD’s Community Sports Club Project supports the Hong Kong Archery Association by promoting archery and funding archery events at the community level.  It also helps to improve the standard of the archery sport locally, promote the development of young archery athletes, teach more people about this sport and encourage lifelong participation among the public.

Lucien’s Profile:

Lucien is currently one of the athletes under the 2019-2020 Elite Training Grant – Individual Athletes Support Scheme of the Hong Kong Sports Institute.  He is the current holder of two Hong Kong archery records.  At the Seoul International Youth Indoor Archery Festa 2018 held in Seoul, Korea on 20-24 December 2018, Lucien and his teammates won the championship in the men’s recurve bow team competition.  At the World Archery Youth Championships held in Madrid, Spain on 19-25 August 2019, he ranked 17^th overall in the men’s recurve junior group with outstanding results.