Jack Williams became the world’s top shooter shortly after he started shooting as a teenager. Now 21 years old, he will participate in his first Olympic Games, he is one of the popular candidates to win medals.
Williams will make his Olympic debut this weekend with two American veterans who have participated in the Olympics. For Williams, he will rely on his training.Oh, there is no crowd in Tokyo Olympic Games Should also help him.
When asked about the potential tension of traveling to Tokyo, Williams was mixed.
“Yes, and no. I don’t think the Olympics is just another game,” Williams told Weekly newspaper Before he went to Tokyo. “It’s all the same people, so it makes no difference…unless you put pressure on yourself.”
But the Olympics are different from most championships. This is not a typical World Cup or World Championship, just like these archers participate in several times a year. This is the only, transnational and multi-continental event held every four years. This is an event that engraves archers in Olympic legends.
Again, this year’s Olympics will have no fans, similar to the World Cup where the Olympics are held several times every four years.
“This will affect weaker archers who have an audience,” Williams said. “I need to stand there and cast 10 points, everything will be fine.”
Photo: Dean Alberga/World Archery Federation via Getty Images
Williams said his games in Japan will be the top archers he has faced in the past few years, including the recent World Championships, where he won the silver medal.
Williams grew up in Southern California and is a budding fencer. He discovered archery while participating in a fencing project. Although he performed well in regional and state fencing competitions and later national competitions, he has been archery.
“As the game progressed, I lost my competitiveness in fencing, so I tried archery,” Williams said. “From the knowledge that fencing taught me, I quickly grasped the tricks of it, and I quickly became good at it.”
At the age of 12, he asked to bow for his next birthday. In April 2013, he received a bow and got his wish. He became very good, very fast. At Christmas, another wish came true-an Olympic-style recurve bow.
Since then, Williams’ ranking has soared. Although he is in the 13-year-old group, his shooting ability is as good as many older teenagers and some adults.
Williams attributed his rapid rise in the archery ranking to his fencing coach. Even when he was very young, he knew that it was better to learn the basics from proper guidance than to learn by the side.
“I started to learn the basic courses, this is what I learned from fencing, and this is the role of the coach for me,” Williams said. “I applied these courses through archery. Only at level 13, even if I cast for a few months, I did a good job. But I want to continue to apply the coaching concept.”
By 2016, he graduated from Irvine High School and moved to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, where he trained under the guidance of legendary coach Kisik Lee. There, he watched shooters like Brady Ellison training and finally won a medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics.
Williams hopes to one day become one of the archers on global television, and may even compete with Ellison.
“Brady has always been the pinnacle of my entire career. I have been looking up at Brady and watching him shoot. Watching his path is a motivation for me,” Williams said.
Ellison is the world’s top scorer and the personal gold medal favorite of the Tokyo Olympics. He said Williams’ rise is amazing.
“Jack has a lot of talent and he shoots a good bow,” Ellison said Weekly newspaper“If he decides to take this as a career, he will be able to do it. He is a more tech-savvy generation.”
The two are part of a trio, which also includes 2012 Olympic athlete Jacob Uki. In qualifying, these three scored more than 680 points per stroke. No other team in Tokyo has all three players in this combination. In the past two games, the US team trailed South Korea to win silver medals. This may be the time when they broke the gold medal shortage since 1996, when the United States won the group gold medal and the individual gold medal.
“This is the goal, to win as many medals as possible for the American team,” Williams said. “Our obvious goals are individual gold, silver and medals and team gold. I think this is a team that can do that.”
American archers began to bow officially in Tokyo on Saturday.
