Will Wu ’19 holds at full draw at a Choate Archery practice. Photo courtesy of Ross Mortensen
During Choate’s spring break earlier this month, Will Wu ’19 attended the 50th U.S. National Indoor Championships for Archery in Fiskdale, Massachusetts, and won first place in his division. With an average score of 8.50 points out of ten points per shot on 120 total shots, Wu took first place in the Recurve Men Junior Guest Division, which consists of men aged 18-23 who are not from the United States. This annual tournament, held from December 28 to February 25, enabled hundreds of accomplished archers from around the United States to officially compete amongst one another.
Although the tournament is an open invitation to all archers, Choate’s archery team typically allows only experienced members, who have been a part of the team for two or three years, to attend because of the competitive nature of the tournament. The tournament is comprised of four rounds of thirty shots each. The competitors typically split the workload of 120 shots between the course of the two-day weekend event, by shooting 60 each day. Unfortunately, Wu had to take all 120 shots in one sitting, all over the course of eight hours, so he could make it back to Choate on time to attend class. Despite the time constraint, Wu broke his personal single-round record, scoring 265 out of 300 points and shooting an average score of 8.83 per shot.
Wu has been competing in archery for four years. “Before Choate, I had no experience with archery at all,” Wu said. He cited the DC Comics character Green Arrow, a superhero who uses his archery skills to fight crime, as his inspiration to join the Archery team during his freshman year at Choate.
Wu’s performance at the championship serves as a testament to the diligence he has put into his training the past few years. “[During] Thanksgiving and Christmas break of my sophomore and junior year, I would always bring my bow with me and shoot at the ranges near my home,” Wu said. He also acknowledged the importance of the more experienced members of the team. “We rely on older members of the team to really give advice and cultivate our younger members.”
Wu additionally spoke of the unique bond that members of Choate Archery have formed and highlighted a specific story. “It was the end of the practice, and I thought [the coach] blew the whistle, so I was walking down the firing range. All of a sudden, a bunch of people started yelling at me to get out of the way because there were still people shooting,” Wu said. “It was a really scary moment because I totally almost got shot, but now we use this story in the team to educate people about safety.”
Concerning his future plans in archery, Wu is confident that he will continue the sport well into college. “Archery is an expensive sport, and I have invested a lot of time and money into it, so I’m going to shoot at a club team in college. I’ll also begin to transition from indoor to outdoor [shooting]. Choate only has an indoor range, but outdoor is actually more difficult,” said Wu.
Wu’s story of archery is evidence that a student can acquire a new talent at Choate and end up pursuing it at a high level.
