A man on a mission is what it will be about for Wian Roux this week when he competes at the African Archery Championships hosted at on the Tuks Sports Campus in Pretoria.

Roux backs himself in being able to medal in the men’s recurve competition. His confidence is not unfounded. The Tuks archer is currently jointly ranked tenth on Africa’s Continental rankings. In 2018 as a youth archer, he won silver at the African Youth Games in Algiers.

His only drawback might be a lack of experience. It is the first year he is competing against seniors. He got a feel of what it will take to compete against the world’s best earlier this year. Roux was selected to represent South Africa at a World Cup Tournament in Paris. For a novice, he did pretty good. He was accurate enough to qualify for the elimination rounds.

“Competing at a World Cup event was an eye-opener. At the junior levels, the playing field is kind of level, there are good young archers, but most of us are still learning the tricks of the trade. When you start competing at the elite level, you are up against years and years of experience. I won’t lie. When I lined up to shoot my first arrow, I was slightly nervous,” explains the second-year BCom Marketing student.

Roux’s personal best shooting out of a possible 720 is a score of 641. He is, however, confident of improving on it during the African Champs. Recurve is the Olympic Games format.

“The aim is to shoot 650 or better. It is certainly doable. I have done so quite a few times during training. 650 could be good enough to top the log standings after the qualification round. Finishing high up in the standings is essential as it sets you up for a better draw in the elimination,” he explained.

According to Roux, the thing about archery is to be able to keep your cool.

“It is just you, your bow and the target. The primary requisite in our sport is the utmost concentration. When one of the arrows goes off the mark, it is essential to immediately forget about it and focus on your next shot. The moment you start wondering about what went wrong is when you start doubting your abilities. Then you are doomed. It is vital to keep your emotions intact until you shoot the last of the 72 arrows,” Roux concluded.

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