For many of the people of Avila, he will be an unknown person since archery is not one of the disciplines that has the most media relevance in the media. Despite this, it is a sport that many more people practice every year. In the city of Ávila, Club Arqueros Abulenses welcomes dozens of athletes who aspire to meet personal and collective goals. In the last National Championship in Ciudad Real they have won three bronze medals.
One of them, led by Silvia Suárez, representative of the mixed team from Castilla y León with another from Avila, Francisco Herrero.
After achieving this bronze medal, which has been a great success in his sporting career, he speaks to our media to analyze what has been a sporting stage full of successes after this long-awaited award with his teammates in the national championship.
Silvia Suárez expressed that in this sport she made her first contacts “thanks to my son, he started in this sport and always told me, since you are here, why don’t you pick up a bow and shoot?” For the protagonist, the family environment has been key to becoming a recognized person in the Traditional Bow modality, “after traveling to so many championships with my son, it is a very strong, very beautiful connection that I have with him.”
beginnings. Since 2014, Silvia Suárez has been training and mentoring groups of students who want to improve their archery technique. But also adding to the mental aspect. As he argued, “mental strength is key, I always try to think about what my whole body is, how I have the position of my hands, how I have the position of my head, hips, being calm and thinking about where I have to shoot the arrow, look at the target and finally release it from the well-made string.”
One of the biggest keys in the world of sports focuses on sacrifice and effort. For Silvia Suárez, it has been important to decide between sports and the work aspect. Despite everything, he manages to find time to train archery. “On many occasions they tell me that I have to train more, to be better, but it is what it is.”
Her first competitions were in the Castilla y León Championship, “after appearing I saw that I had to be more prepared, I thought, I prepare a little more because if I am not prepared I will not appear in any championship.” After a constant training process “I felt more encouraged and more prepared, and that’s when I decided to take part in the Spanish Championship.”
Injuries are part of the job. Suárez had a turning point in his sporting career when he had to stop due to surgery on a finger on his right hand. “I was out for a long time, I didn’t pick up the bow or train.” When he recovered from the injury, he had to stop due to COVID. As she commented, “from this point on I have been doing more as a monitor, which means dedicating myself more to preparing people than training on my own.”
Now that he has achieved a bronze medal, he remembered with special affection this sporting victory, which shows all the collective and personal effort until the test was carried out.
«In the first part of the individual test I remember that I did very well, the second part I fell apart, I don’t know why, I dropped quite a few points, because I could have been second by score, but hey, there are times when these things happen.» In the women’s category of the Traditional Bow modality individually, she finished in ninth position, while in the mixed team event, she won bronze. “In this part of the competition I was much more relaxed and inspired, especially knowing that my partner, who was sick, couldn’t bear his soul and made a magnificent roll, for me it was so admiring that it made me do my best for him and I did it.”
He is one of the most recognized archers from Avila in the archery scene in the Traditional Bow modality. Francisco Herrero, a member of the Abulenses Arqueros Club, has been part of the group for four years, when they began their first steps in this discipline. After achieving several medals in the Castilla y León championship and adding two bronzes in the Spanish championship in the individual and mixed team modality with Silvia Suárez in Arco Tradicional, he attended this medium to analyze the path of his success. In this sport, where the technical aspect and mental strength are so key, Francisco Herrero assured that another highlight is “emotional control.” One of the simplest actions that every archer carries out and that can end up condemning the shot, is the release. As Francisco explained, “at the exact moment when you throw the bow, you have to try not to make a voluntary release, once you start training, you realize that it is the opposite and it is not voluntary.”
A sport like archery is highly competitive, “if you lose a throw that is three points, you may already be out of the game.” This situation of losing all options in a very few seconds was defined as “something very stressful.” As a result of this high level of competition, it confirmed that training is key in the learning process. “Even if one has scored 290 points in a competition, it does not guarantee that it will be repeated in the next competition.” A factor in which practice can often play tricks on the athlete, “in the end the most essential thing is to search for oneself, look for another type of training, and train every day with different objectives, whether daily or weekly, that is, specific objectives in each training I do.”
sacrifice. For Herrero, one of the most complicated parts of this sport is “being able to combine it with the family, I am aware that I need a lot of time to train, which I lose with my loved ones.” The aspect and support of the family is key when competing, “if you have a problem when competing, it is normal to think about it during the development of the event, but also vice versa, receiving a message of support from the family is something that gives me great support.” The state of mind is key when competing, because the way you feel competing “can make you lose or add points.”
His time in the Spanish championship was something he said was hard, “because he was suffering from an illness,” but this situation he confessed that “that weakness makes your mind have to reinforce other aspects, something that has ended up helping me.” He never thought about giving up due to his personal situation, “he had a job done that he couldn’t throw overboard.” Furthermore, another factor that has ended up leading to Francisco Herrero’s success has been the support of his teammates, “it’s nice that everyone is there supporting you, this made me not worry about the environment as much as other times when I have been competing.” In an analysis of his results, “in the first two rounds I finished first, people congratulated me.” But, in the end he finished in third place, “this award boosted my morale for the last competition with Silvia.” Her work with her partner was expressed as “very positive”, Herrero stated that “Silvia’s performance was very reliable, which helped us end up getting the bronze medal.”
As for his next goals, “the next runs are 30 meters”, this means changing his training and going outside. But he is not worried that the challenge is much more complicated, “my method is not going to change, train and train and train as much as possible, but with a head.”
He asks young people to be cautious, “at first the results are very satisfactory, it seems easy because of the distance, but if they do not follow a correct learning process, they may end up dropping out because they do not face the tension and pressure that these tests entail.” Finally, what I was most grateful for in this sport was “the mental discipline it has given me, to be able to accomplish challenges that I never thought I could accomplish.”
