Alan is Beijing's Olympic Hope

7th July 2008

Alan Wills knew he had an uncanny aim as a teenager when bagging rabbits with an air rifle in fields close to his West Cumbrian home. Little over a decade later he has an Olympic medal in his sights.

But don’t ask the world No 3 target archer if he’s pleased to be boarding the plane for China later this month. Just look at him.

Last week he had the iconic Olympic rings tattooed on his right arm. He hopes to complete the look with a medal in Beijing.

In a sport where millimetres separate champs and challengers, archers at his level have iced water running through their veins.

It’s almost insulting to wonder if the 26-year-old is jittery ahead of the most important shoot of his life.

“I’m not nervous at all,” he confirmed. “It’s just another day at the office, another competition.

“I’ll love it, but I’ll try not to get overwhelmed by the Olympic experience. I’m there to do a job, and I’ll shoot my arrows the best I can.”

It’s a hard-edged philosophy that has served him well. Little over a year after joining Sellafield Archery at 13, he was competing in the national junior championship. Though there was no indication of the glory to follow within a few years.

“I finished second-to-last,” recalled Arlecdon-based Alan. “I gave up archery I was so embarrassed. But after a couple of months I started back and got addicted to training. I just wanted to get better and better.”

He caught the eye of Great Britain selectors at 15, and from 16 to 18, he was the top junior in Europe.

In 2002, aged 21, he finished third in his first senior competition. It happened to be the world championship in Australia.

“It felt brilliant,” he said. “I was training really hard and sacrificing. It meant missing nights out with my mates and all the normal things that 21-year-old kids do. I was eating healthily and behaving myself.”

Two years later he struck gold in the GB team event at the world championship in Croatia. And in 2005 he followed up with an individual silver medal in the World Games.

The next year, ranked No 1 field archer in the world, he quit for its better known cousin, target archery, an Olympic sport.

In the field event, archers aim at targets over different terrain at varying distances. In target archery, the bulls-eye is set at a standard 70 metres distance.

He added: “I had done as much as I could in field archery. Target archery is a little more prestigious.

“When I was in field archery, people around the world would ask if I’d been to the Olympics, and I’d say I was No 1 in the world in a sport not included in the Olympics. The Olympics is a select club.”

Alan, a carpenter/joiner by trade, showed no problem adapting to his new sport. Last year he lined up against 170 rivals from 87 countries in the world championship, in Germany, winning an individual bronze medal, and a team silver.

As an elite performer he qualified for UK Sport funding and in September he laid down his chisel and moved full-time in to archery.

His job with Frizington firm C & E Builders was kept open, for which he is hugely grateful.

“It will be back to reality after the Olympics,” quipped Alan, whose astonishing success is all the more remarkable given that a long-term tendon problem in his shoulder prevents him from practising with his bow for more than a couple of hours daily. It’s less than half of what his rivals will be putting in.

“I’m limited to what I can do, but I’ve got to do the best I can. I can’t dwell on it. If I use my training constructively I don’t lose out.

“It was hard when I first went full-time because previously every hour of my day had been filled. I was working full-time and in the evening doing my training and going to the gym, so I was used to being busy all the time.”

He consciously made a slow start to the current campaign, aiming to peak for Beijing.

In the initial 10-man shoot-out for the three-man GB team at Lilleshall he finished sixth. In the third and final four-man shoot, he squeezed home in third place.

Yet ahead of the biggest battle of Wills’ career he is undaunted.

“I wanted to push for the Olympics, and I’m getting better and better as I go along,” he said. “My confidence is building, so I can’t wait.

“I’ve got no expectation of winning a medal because that takes away your focus. But if I do my best, good things will happen.

“I know deep down that if I can focus, I can beat the best in the world. I can be the best in the world.”

Let the Games begin.