Bullseye!

Sixty archers approach the line. The venue goes silent, followed by the swooshing sound of 60 arrows flying off the bowstring, again and again. Archery is a sport that requires precision, focus and accuracy, and at the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games competition, victory is achieved in that quiet environment.

Each of the archers has their own individual mental process before releasing their bowstring. New Zealand’s Ben McLean explained that his involves focusing on simple things and letting habit take over.

“Everyone else here will have their own processes, which are roughly similar,” explained the 21-year-old. “Some are different, but you don’t want to overcomplicate it. You subconsciously know how to do ninety percent of the job. It’s just that extra little bit that you need to reinforce every time to shoot well.”

Others, like the USA’s Venugopal Kunnavakkam, focus on complete technique.

“Driving my shoulders towards the target and just keeping that motion going all the way through,” said the 22-year-old, who is enrolled in medicine and health at Texas A&M University. “Until I decide I want to finish the shot.”

Elias Olsson focuses on fearlessness.

“I want to make sure that I shoot an arrow that I can be proud of after I’ve let go, because you can’t change anything once you’ve shot an arrow,” said the Swede. “In other sports, you can make corrections, but once you’ve shot an arrow it’s stuck, so I want to be able to never regret shooting an arrow.”

Additionally, an archer needs to keep their focus and eliminate distraction. During each competition, Israel’s Eyal Roziner blocks out everything except for his bow and the target.

“No matter how loud everything is, no matter how much music there is, you’re not listening to anything,” said the 22-year-old. “Everything is blank, all you’re doing is just focusing on the shot. Sometimes you hear the noise, the voices and everything, but you have to be overriding it.”

Where archery meets academia

For those student-athletes, all of whom competed in men’s recurve individual on July 23, archery is only one part of their day-to-day lives.

McLean, a geography major at The University of Auckland sees the science behind the sport, and how archery and university studies overlap.

“It’s a science, so you need to be as precise as possible,” the New Zealander said. “I think the work ethics certainly overlap, obviously you do better in university or in academia if you put a lot of effort into it, and the same with archery, you’ll never go anywhere without putting in effort. I’d like to think that I’ve put in a lot of effort in both, and I’m getting good results out of it.”

For Olsson, an engineering student at Linköping University, precision is a parallel element on and off the field of play, and both his sport and his area of study involve careful calculations.

Fortunately for Roziner, an archery coaching student at the Net Holman School for Coaches and Instructors, sport and study directly overlap.

“It’s like I’m learning so much as an archer, as an athlete,” he explained. “And going forward and giving all that knowledge that I have and what I’ve learned to other people, the people that I coach, feels very satisfying.”

One of his most important pieces of coaching advice comes from one of his own mentors.

“Archery, maybe (like) every sport, is a marathon,” the Israeli said. “Even if you have one bad day, it’s a life marathon. It’s okay that you have one bad day because as long as you learn from it, the next day will be better.  Even if you have weeks of bad days, if you learn from it, everything will be okay.”

After Wednesday’s competition, teammates Hao Feng and Wangyu Qun from the People’s Republic of China will face off in the men’s recurve semifinal round on Saturday at Zeche Zollverein, while Chih-Chun Tang from Chinese Taipei and Berkim Tumer from Türkiye will battle in the other Final Four duel.

The gold-medal final is set for the same day at 11:21 a.m. CET.

The Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games take place from 16-27 July. Watch all the competitions live on fisu.tv. Click on the link to find the full schedule. 

Written by Fisher Madsen, FISU Young Reporter, USA 

The Young Reporters Programme exemplifies FISU’s commitment to more than sports competitions. At every FISU World University Games, a group of talented aspiring sports journalists are chosen to cover the competition.