A Rocky View County athlete who recently competed in Poland at the World Archery Youth Championships, has been named Junior Male Athlete of the Year for 2021 by Archery Canada – a national sport organization dedicated to the promotion and development of the sport in Canada.
Andrew Smollett, a 20-year old archer based in west Rocky View County, travelled for the first time to Wroclaw, Poland to compete in the international competition last summer in the Junior Male Recurve Division.
According to Smollett, he is extremely proud to have represented both his province and his country on the world stage at the competition, which was hosted by the international federation for archery, World Archery, from Aug. 5 to 9, 2021. The competition saw athletes compete from across the globe and in various skill levels.
“It was fantastic. I was one of the first Albertans to be on the national team and have been the first one for quite a few years now, actually,” he said of his placement. “So, being able to represent Alberta was pretty awesome, and then also being able to represent Canada was even better.”
Smollett, who was gifted a compound bow for Christmas in 2015, began archery with the intention of using his bow on hunting excursions with his dad. Two years later, he received his first recurve bow for target shooting.
He said in the years following, he looked up to and watched the progress of many of the world’s top archers.
The young athlete spent a full year practicing approximately three to four days each week with a highly regarded archery coach at Jim-Bow Archer in Calgary. Within two and a half years, he was competing at an international level.
“Growing up, watching a lot of these top shooters compete, and then to finally be there at the world stage with them competing was a pretty awesome feeling,” he said of the 2021 competition.
Though the experience was surreal for the archer, Smollett said it was tough shooting conditions, of which he tried to make the best of.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t do as great as I had hoped, but [it was] still a great learning experience,” he said.
According to Smollett, competition-day nerves got the better of him, but the windy shooting conditions also posed a challenge for the young archer.
“I would say probably the most difficult, challenging part was having my arrows blown around a little bit [because of the wind] and just being steady,” he added.
He said the most rewarding aspect of the competition was competing in a team event and winning against a team from Estonia.
“Going up there with the team and celebrating that victory was pretty awesome,” he said.
“I think it’s the first time that Canada actually sent a youth team to Poland for the World Championships,” he added. “So being able to get at least one win the first time in a long time at least was pretty awesome.”
Regarding his being recognized as Archery Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year for 2021, he said the announcement came as a surprise to him.
“I would have thought maybe one of my teammates could’ve got that because they all participated in the same events,” he said. “I thought they would have done better than me, but I’m very grateful and honoured for the award.”
The archer just returned from his first senior World Cup in Colombia in July of this year and is hoping to keep up a rigorous training regimen. He has his sights set on next year’s World Cup Championships, followed by his dream of participating in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris the following year.
Smollett also spends time volunteering at his range, helping out younger archers and assisting in coaching before and after his own practices.
