Ozarks Life: Local archers head to Slovenia for a World Championship

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Out at the Springfield Archery Complex, local archers have been training for this week’s World Archery 3D Championships in Slovenia.

Republic’s Christian Clark, Carl Junction’s Jeremiah Jones, and Nixa’s Cody Hasson are all representing Team USA.

“I don’t know anything about Slovenia,” Jeremiah admitted.

“I know that it’s pretty close to Italy,” Christian joked.

On the day we shot the story at the archery complex, Hasson wasn’t able to meet us because of work.

Christian is 21 and a marketing student at Missouri State University. Jeremiah is 22 and works in construction. But every moment of free time they have is spent shooting at a dream. He’s been doing this for about 18 years.

“My dad, when I was growing up, was always shooting his bow off the back porch,” Christian said. “I just wanted to be better than my dad. Wanted to be better than my dad. It was like a dream of mine.”

In high school, he broke his elbow while playing tennis so he decided to give archery a shot.

“Last year, I was the number one semi-pro in the world in my division in the ASA circuit,” Christian said.

Jeremiah started shooting in the third grade but really excelled when he joined NASP, the National Archery in the Schools Program.

“So during my high school career in NASP, I shot a perfect 300,” Jeremiah said. “I was the 17th person ever to shoot a perfect 300.”

Both archers made the Super Bowl of indoor competitions, the Vegas Shoot last year with Jeremiah winning his field.

“At an indoor tournament,” Christian said, “you can win anywhere from $15,000 in a professional event to probably close to $100,000 to $120,000 at some of the biggest ones.”

Jeremiah is competing in the barebow field while Christian is in the compound division. At the World Archery 3D Championships, they cannot use any electronic devices on the bows or range finders to gauge their distance. They all have to rely on their instinct and years of practice.

“We’ll have two qualifying days over there,” Jeremiah said. “Twenty-four targets, two arrows each, and then the top 16 go on to elimination matches. Then whoever makes it to the final rounds, they will go to the metal matches.”

And their advice for anyone looking to get into archery? They say to just have fun.

“If you enjoy it enough, that’s the key to getting really good at it,” Christian said. “Because you have to enjoy it to do it a lot to get good.”

Christian advanced to the knock-out tournament of 16 in the compound bow.

Jeremiah finished 24th in his barebow field and missed the tournament.

Hasson is in the traditional bow. He finished 28th in his group and also missed the tournament.

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