ARCHERY: After spending the first week in China training, archery athletes Jessica Sutton and Nick Turner are gearing up for competition tomorrow.

Both from Queensland, the pair are a world away from home but are completely focused on the target at hand.

“It started off shaky but as the week has been progressing I have been getting a little bit better so hopefully by Friday I will be right,” Turner said.

“All the technic stuff that I have been struggling with back at home has just seemed to fall into place since I’ve got here and everything is going really good,” Sutton said.

With the competition shaping up to be quite tough 16-year-old Turner says he has a very simple competition plan.

“Putting them in the middle basically,” Turner said.

“My aim is to shoot as well as I can really, I’d like to win a couple of matches and rank hopefully somewhere in the middle but I would also just like to enjoy the big experience.”

While a medal isn’t out of the question Turner says he is just taking it one step at a time while 15-year-old Sutton has set the bar much higher for herself.

“Top eight is a benchmark and then from there a medal would be pretty nice, I am thinking in the teams my goal is a medal,” she said.

Unfortunately like some team events at the Youth Olympic Games, Turner and Sutton will most likely not be teamed together with the groups based on their seeded rank after the ranking recurve on Friday morning.

From there the top male athlete will be paired with the bottom female athlete and so on until all archers are paired.

The ranking round also serves as the ranking round for individual men and women’s competition.

“Ranking around the middle after the ranking round will give us a good chance in the teams,” Turner said.

Like many of their fellow Australian teammates, the Queensland duo is very impressed with the facilities especially their sporting arena at the Fangshan Archery Field.

“It’s pretty good, it’s quite small and not too open and the finals field looks really nice as well so it should be good,” Sutton said.

“It’s not too big which means it’s not too windy but there is also plenty of space for everyone to shoot so there is not too many people per target and the finals field has got a nice big stadium for people to watch so that looks really good,” Turner added.

However it is not all about the competition, the Youth Olympic Games is also about learning and experiencing, what  for some might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

“It’s amazing, I think walking around and seeing so many sports and so many countries and all the cultural things around the village, it’s very different,” Sutton said.

“Being able to wear the Australian uniform with the Olympic rings on it is definitely something quite special ... but also the Olympic atmosphere, you know there are thousands of athletes here competing and training and just being a part of that is excellent,” Turner added.

The archery competition runs from Friday, 22 August, through until Tuesday, 26 August, with the ranking round scheduled to kick things off at 0930 (1130 AEST) on Friday morning.

Sutton and Turner will begin their mixed team campaign on Friday afternoon before turning their attention to men and women’s elimination rounds on Saturday.

Laura Judd

Olympics.com.au

@AUSOlympicTeam