Pip Tucknott from 9CL has this year finished third in both the Sussex Junior Indoor and Outdoor Archery Championships and was also selected twice to shoot for the county against Hampshire and Essex.

Pip’s interest in the sport began back in 2004 when he watched Britain’s Larry Godfrey take fourth place in the men’s recurve at the Olympic Games.

It looked like fun and easy as well : take aim, let go of the string and score 10 !

Not surprisingly he found out that it isn’t quite as simple as that - Somebody once said that there are two steps in getting to the top in archery :

(1) work out how to put one arrow in the gold - and then
(2) work out how to put every arrow in the gold

So anyone wanting to shoot high scores has to put in a lot of practise.

To Pip this isn’t a hardship when you enjoy the sport and the company of the people at your local club.

He says that he has made a lot of friends through archery and would encourage everyone to try the sport

It is a sport that really is open to all, as you can see from the success of the GB team at the Paralympic Games in 2008

Pip’s 2009 outdoor season finished on a high as he found himself at the National Sports Centre at Lilleshall, standing on the same shooting line as Larry Godfrey and the rest of the Great Britain team.

There aren’t many sports offering the same opportunity to rub shoulders with Olympians !