A Wray of hope
Teen archer aiming for world juniors
THERE’S little room for error in archery but Bannockburn’s Jakob Wray is on target for a bright career.
Wray, 16, first picked up a bow in 2014 and last year represented Australia at the Trans-Tasman Championships, winning a gold medal in his team’s event.
He also won a mixed teams gold medal at the 2019 Youth National Archery Championships, ranking both as career highlights.
Wray entered open division at the Moorabbin Moomba Cup before the lockdown and was second by only three shots, highlighting his potential against more experienced archers.
Wray said he enjoyed the uniqueness of the sport.
“Next year, Australia is holding the World Youth Archery Championships in Perth so that’s the ultimate goal at this stage,” he said.
“I’m wanting to hopefully represent Australia at a senior World Cup — that’s the highest I can go with my compound bow division.
“There’s also various competitions within America that are quite big that I’m hoping to do.”
He is also a part of the Victorian contingent in Archery Australia’s high performance program and is a member of the sport body’s regional development squad.
Geelong Archers senior member Tom Ashton said Wray’s background in junior cricket, which he gave away a couple of years ago to focus on his archery, had helped his competitiveness.
“A lot of kids that come down, they’ll do it for two or three years and then just fade away,” Ashton said.
”Jakob definitely hasn’t been that sort of person.
He’s basically come ahead leaps and bounds and has managed to maintain quite a good level of shooting.
“The standard competition round is out of 720 points. Jakob’s currently shooting between 680 and 690. To be competitive on the world level is to shoot 710
”Basically, you have to put 90 per cent of your shots in a 4cm circle from about 50m.”
Wray said Ashton would need more funding to challenge international competitors.
“There are people who are practising overseas, notably in the Netherlands and the US, who regularly will put two arrows out of 72 within two or three millimetres out and the other 70 dead centre,” he said.
“They’ve got government funding, which means they can do it as a career, or commercial funding as well. Jakob has the potential if he keeps going to get up there.”