A UNIVERSITY of Worcester student has targeted a medal at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics after she set a new archery world record.
Phoebe Pine, who was born with spina bifida, now holds the highest score in the world ever set from an 18 metres distance by a woman in her Compound Open disability classification. She set the record at a World Cup Stages event in Nimes, France, achieving a score of 562 out of a possible 600 points, shooting 60 arrows.
Phoebe, who first picked up a bow and arrow at 14-years-old on a family holiday, is now preparing for the European Para Archery Championships in August and next year’s World Championships.
The 20-year-old, who is in the first year of a Sport Studies degree, said her studies helped her better understand her sport and could help her go into coaching after her archery career ends.
“The sports psychology side has been really interesting,” said the world championships silver medallist. “At the moment I’m doing motor skills, which is also interesting from an archery perspective in that it’s just how you acquire a skill and the amount of time it takes for the brain to learn how to do that skill.
“It’s also given me more of an understanding of what goes into the sport, which has given me more respect for it.
Being part of the team you are told what to do. I now know why they want me to do this, rather than just because they have told me to.”
Phoebe, who is supported through the university’s sports scholarship programme, says it can be tough combining study with more than 30 hours a week of training at the GB Archery National Centre in Telford, her club and at home in the garden.
“It’s not as glamorous as in films,” she said. “You do have to make sacrifices for it, but when you wake up the day after a match and you got that medal it makes it all worthwhile.