Sebastián JUANOLA: “the award is being here”

JUANOLA has just arrived in Cali to take part in the field archery competition at the World Games. He approaches the competition with a sense of accomplishment and a great deal of passion for his preferred hobby: the sport of archery. 
Since winning the World Championships title last year in Val d’Isere, how is your life going and where have you competed?My life is sadder ...he laughs… Because after obtaining the world champion title, you shoot with a kind of obligation; it’s not a hobby anymore with some success at the end, it’s now about being present, non-stop! For the rest, my life is the same, I’m a farmer and regarding archery, I participated in a competition in Sweden and I still shoot in our national league.
As a world champion, what sorts of expectations do you bring to an event like the World Games?We have often mentioned this, my teammate David and I: our award is being here. If we’re here it’s because we did things well, but thinking about whether the competition will go well or not is another story. We can shoot badly and win, as we can shoot well and lose. Our award is being here amongst 10 other world-class athletes in the world. 
What are the World Games like for you so far?For the moment we haven’t seen many things; we just arrived last night and we came to the training field to shoot some arrows. We’ll see what happens during the next two days, but for the moment, everything seems well organised. We are neophytes, with the consequent jet-lag and with some sleep to recover.
Have you given serious thought to taking part in the recurve or compound circuit competitions that are organised by World Archery?No at all, I want to continue shooting as I do now. I have other objectives in life: my family and my business. Archery is a hobby only and as long as I continue seeing it as such, I’ll continue to shoot well. Whereas if I have to shoot as an obligation, I think that magic will be over. Here for instance, we can recognise professional archers from the others and we can feel the major pressure they have on their shoulders. This is perhaps what makes us more serene because even if we shoot worse than them, we’ll get the same thing. They compete for their salaries but for me, my salary is being here and our federation funding the trip, which is a great privilege.
Do you feel that barebow archers are missing some international recognition?Yes but certainly because we don’t earn our lives with this and because we don’t aspire to participate in Olympic Games. Personally I have some international recognition but I miss some recognition at national level. In Spain, barebow is not considered as it is abroad, even less within field archery. We are like the poorest in archery.
How do you see the level in Spain within the different archery disciplines? Archery is still trendy but people were and still are standing by within all the different disciplines, probably because there’s a lack of great victories. Nobody wants to shoot in recurve field archery; it’s as if field archery is a downgrade for some. Again, when we see what is going on in Europe and in the rest of the world, it’s a different story; there’s a fight for attending big international championships, while this is not the case in Spain. It’s like if what is going on in other countries was too far for Spaniard archers. David and I broke this trend a bit but people continue to perceive us differently because we are on top, not above the others; but for other archers we seem unreachable and they don’t even think about joining us. I think that if they would take archery as a hobby, they would have a different attitude, because if you don’t have fun when you shoot, then it’s not worth it!
And how do you see yourself: do you still have fun and do you feel like accomplishing more in this sport? After winning the World Championships, I went through a bad moment. After the victory, I participated in a 3D archery tournament but my head didn’t follow: I shot as well as before but my head wasn’t there. It was a total disaster because I didn’t enjoy at all. It’s only after this bad moment that I realised it was due to my World Champion title. Now I have fun in attending competitions again, independently of whether I finish first, second or tenth. Again: the award is being here, it’s something unbelievable!
Go to Sebastián JUANOLA’s biography and follow the Cali World Games field archery competitions as from tomorrow in our webpage.
World Archery Communication