South Canterbury archer to compete in Canada

Otago Daily Times

20 hours ago

A young Timaru archer is preparing to let loose at his first international event outside of Australasia.
After spending the year racking up the necessary qualifying scores, 17-year-old ace Zac Campbell will be competing as part of a six-person New Zealand squad at the World Youth Archery Championships in Winnipeg, Canada next week.
Campbell will joining 600 archers from 66 different countries and competing as one of three New Zealand recurve archers.
He said he was very excited to be taking part in his first big international competition.
"It's going to be pretty cool. It's different to anything I've done so far because it's so much bigger.
"I want to get in the top percentile of archers there, maybe top 10, top 20 — but I have no idea exactly what to expect apart from something big and flashy."
Campbell said he had improved a lot over the last year.
"My target score has jumped up quite a bit, and quite quickly. I've gone from 600s to 620s and then to 640s and 650s. It just clicked, and suddenly I was getting there.
"650 is my current goal now. Getting to that is pretty cool to think about because it shows just how much I've improved and now I'm feeling a whole lot more confident for Canada.
"I've also been making a lot more trips up to Christchurch to see my coach Dave [Henshaw], and I think that's made a huge difference."
There will not be much time to rest for Campbell when he returns to New Zealand, as he has also been selected as part of the 37-strong Kiwi squad to compete against Australia for the Transtasman Trophy in Christchurch next month.
It will be his second time competing in the Transtasman Archery Challenge after picking up a gold, silver and bronze medal at the event in Adelaide, Australia in 2023.
He said he was looking forward to meeting up with archers from all the different countries as well as a few familiar faces across the two competitions.
"It will be cool to see people from different places, hear their stories and maybe trade some shirts like we did in Australia [at the 2023 Transtasman].
"Catching up with old friends from the last transtasman will be really cool as well. I'm really looking forward to that."
With Campbell turning 18 next year, he misses out on a chance to compete at the Youth Olympics, so his next big goal would be making it to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, he said.
"I think I'm getting there. I move up to under 21s next year which means instead of shooting 60m I go up to 70m.
"I normally train both 60 and 70m anyway, so I'm kind of familiar with it already but we'll find out how it goes when I actually have to do it next year. I don't think it should be too bad.
"I'm feeling all right about everything at the moment. I've just got to keep it going."
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