Archer Roux will be SA’s first Olympian in action at Paris Games

Paris — Wian Roux is only 21, but the archer who competes in the ranking round at Paris 2024 on Wednesday has dreamed about getting to the Olympics for more than half his life.

He will be the first South African in action at this showpiece, firing his first arrow soon after 2.15pm.

Archery is embedded in Roux’s genes, with both his parents, Patrick and Gerda, having won world championship medals in Turkey in 2013 — and, on the same day to boot.

“I was nagging him [dad] for a bow every time we went to the shop,” said Pretoria-based Roux.

“He got me one when I was five.”

The owner of the archery store supported by his parents won an archery medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which inspired them to take up the sport..

Roux started out on a compound bow, which is not used in Olympic competition, but received a recurve bow for his 10th birthday.

“I transitioned [from compound] and I just started shooting recurve from there on. For the Olympics specifically, that’s the main reason I started shooting [recurve],” said Roux, the youngest archer to make the national under-18 team at 14.

With recurve the string is drawn as far back as possible, has no magnifying sights and is shot with the fingers, similar in theory to the Robin Hood movies, though he has no desire to try split arrows with arrows.

The arrows have steel pins on the back to deflect arrows and prevent that happening. “The arrows are R1,600 each — you don’t want that happening.”

Recurve bows, unlike compound, requires constant practice.

“It’s a very technique-based thing ... I train four to five hours a day, and I never take more than three or, four days off at a time. If I go on holiday it won’t be months, it will be three, four days.

“If I’m at home and I decide to take a day off it will only be a single day.”

Even then, after more than a day off it takes him at least a day to find his rhythm.

“If you go away for three days and you come back everything feels a bit stiff, a bit off. So, it takes you two or so days just to get back into that rhythm where everything feels natural ... If you take two days off, it takes you a day to get back. Now you’ve wasted three days. Now you’re on day four and you’re only where you started before you took the days off.”

He also goes to the gym for a programme worked out by a biokineticist, which can occasionally push his daily workload up to eight hours.

Roux put his BCom (marketing) degree at Tuks on hold to focus on the Olympics.

“Between shooting and trying to get into honours, I would have been a bit below what I needed for both and nothing would have worked out.

“It was better to take the year off while my dad allows it,” said Roux, who is already taking aim at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“I’m still young. There's still a lot of time left. I think I’ve still got my best shooting ahead of me, so I don’t want to stop while I’m still developing.”

In Paris, Roux wants to break his 651 personal best in the ranking round.

“If you have a look back at all the historical Olympic scores, shooting anything below that will put you way at the bottom of the draw so you’ll have [to face] the best guys first.”

Competitors shoot 72 arrows in the ranking round, each worth a maximum of 10 points, with a 15-minute break halfway through.

The bow weighs a tad more than 4kg and pulling the arrow back on the string is the equivalent of a little more than 20kg in weight.

The elimination rounds are decided over 15 arrows in five sets of three and will be staged between July 30 and August 4.