Tokyo 2020: Patrick Huston hellbent on propelling archery's popularity to new heights at the Olympic Games
BySportsbeat
Updated 21/05/2021 at 08:37 GMT
Having secured his spot on the team to go to Japan, the 25-year-old says he wants to bring what he has described as a "sexy sport" to the mainstream. Huston says "with how it's going in the movies and television, archery has an awful lot of public interest" and thinks success in Tokyo will help drive participation.
Patrick Huston in action for Team GB
Image credit: Getty Images
Performer Patrick Huston wants to fire ‘sexy' archery back to the British sporting big time.
And the flamboyant Team GB ace singled out the most effective way to capture the public's imagination - gold medal glory in Tokyo this summer.
Huston, who hails from East Belfast, was last month officially selected to compete in his second Olympic Games after slipping to a last 32 defeat in Rio.
He's racked up World Championship, European Championship and European Games medals and has lived and breathed archery since first picking up a bow as an eight-year-old.
Entertainer Huston loves putting on a show and hopes bringing archery's vibrant, striking colours into the nation's living rooms can catapult its status to new heights.
The 25-year-old, one of over 1,000 National Lottery-funded elite athletes on UK Sport's World Class Programme, said: "My skill is that I'm a bit of an actor and performer on the big stage.
Archery is such a sexy sport and has so many nuances. The fantastic thing about archery is how good it looks - it's not only socially-distanced but from a public engagement point of view, it really is a sexy sport.
"You've got the wonderful high-tech pieces of equipment and all these different personalised colour schemes. It all looks a little bit different and frankly, there are so many opportunities for people to look at it and think ‘that looks amazing'.
"If you get nicely taken images of somebody shooting a bow and arrow, it's amazing to watch. The amount of movement that comes into it is coordinated into this extreme level of accuracy.
"The Olympics is all about the top levels of human performance, and the levels of accuracy a top archer can demonstrate really is a tremendous human feat.
"There are so many opportunities for people to watch and engage with this sport and frankly, with how it's going in the movies and television, archery has an awful lot of public interest."
Huston's Tokyo mission is powered by UK Sport's National Lottery-funded World Class Programme that allows him to train full-time, access the world's best coaches and benefit from pioneering technology, science and medical support.
The recurve star went down against Ku Bon-chan in Brazil five years ago but is hellbent on banishing those demons when he descends on Japan this summer.
Huston was in Switzerland last week competing at the Lausanne World Cup as the clock continues to tick towards his second Olympic appearance.
The 2017 World Championship bronze medal was a lone archery raider in Rio but will this year be joined by debutants Tom Hall, 30, and the precocious James Woodgate, 18, in a dynamic-looking men's team.
The 2016 Games taught him some valuable lessons and Huston hopes channelling that experience can help him promote the sport's profile on the biggest stage of all.
Huston, who runs his own archery business away from competing, added: "I'd say the biggest thing that came out of Rio was maturity.
"I've now got an awful lot of experience and understanding of how I respond to situations and manage myself both physically and emotionally.
"The lessons I've learned from Rio and the five years of competing since then will help me go in and really deliver a world-beating performance.
To win gold, for me, means glory for the sport. To come home with that Olympic gold medal and the prominence that would give myself, but also the publicity it would give the sport, would mean the world to me.
"I want to show people that this is a sport that everybody can do. To come home with a gold medal would give me a platform to publicise that to the world."
Huston is hoping to add to the 864 Olympic and Paralympic medals won by Great Britain and Northern Ireland athletes since the advent of National Lottery funding in 1997 and added: "Thank you so much to everybody who plays The National Lottery - you make people like me able to follow our dream.
No one does more to support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes than National Lottery players, who raise around £30 million each week for good causes. Discover the positive impact playing the National Lottery has on sport at www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk and get involved by using the hashtags: #TNLAthletes #TracktoTokyo
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