All archers go through peaks and troughs in form; and pulling yourself out of a shooting rut is one of the most difficult things to do.
But Great Britain’s Penny Healey managed it in spectacular fashion in Central Florida, winning the individual recurve women’s title after hitting the highest highs and the lowest lows in just two short years.
The lows were definitely at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. “When I came home from Paris, I was really disappointed with myself because I was shooting really well before, but I just had a little blip which threw me back about a thousand steps.”
It was all the more frustrating because Healey had a breakthrough year in 2023, winning the European Games title aged just 18, as well as the individual title at the Antalya stage of the World Cup, leading her to a nomination for BBC Young Sports Personality Of The Year that year.
But in Paris, Healey seeded 52nd of 64 in the individual ranking round, a performance she later called “shocking”. This low ranking forced her to come up against Korean Jeon Hunyoung in the first round – who has already taken team Olympic gold that week.
She beat Healey in straight sets, 6-0. “I’ve already said to the psychologist, I’m not going to let the next Games be like these Games. I’m going to do everything I can,” she said afterwards.
There was a lot of work to be done, especially on shot timing and confidence. Healey also took a lot of time competing indoors to refocus. “Kind of rewiring myself. I think doing all the international competitions over the indoor season helped me a lot. When I turned up to the World Cup, I’d seen people at all these competition and it just felt normal, so that helped me a lot and like obviously all the work I did for my coach and all the mental work I’ve been doing really helped.”
“I think the main thing was just not being too hard on myself. I struggled a lot with that last year.”
She set some parameters before coming to the competition in Central Florida. “I had a set of goals that I’d set myself of: a good shoot, an okay shoot and a ‘we need to work on it’ shoot.”
A ‘good’ day was going to be shooting a ranking round of 650 or more and making it to the quarterfinals at least – while keeping expectations in check. “I didn’t make the 650 because of the weather, but I had a good shot process, good timing, I was in a good mental place and I kept my averages good.”
“But I didn’t really expect to medal. Going into the semifinals essentially, I just said: ’Okay.‘ How far I’ve come over the past six months is amazing as it is. To go along and be in that final four is an achievement in itself,” she said.
