AYOF shooter James Huckle aims for London 2012
13 Jan 2009
James Huckle (Harlow) has London 2012 in mind as he competes this week, here in Sydney, at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival.
Only 18, Huckle, a former judo athlete and county runner, has been earmarked by British Shooting as a future Olympic medallist.
In 2008 Huckle won three gold medals at the Commonwealth Youth Games having only taken up the sport because his father's farm had a vermin problem.
"It's strange in a way that I've ended up in the sport because both my parents are pretty much what you could call anti-weapons.
"They hated the idea of one of their children ever playing around with guns.
"But Dad bought this air rifle because we had two and a half acres of land and there was a rat problem.
"I was always fascinated by the idea that you could press a trigger at one end of the gun and direct such enormous power out of the other end.”
Aged 16, Huckle saved up to buy his first competitive rifle and then a chance encounter on his first visit to the GB training venue at Bisley, saw him poached for Olympic competition.
"I’d been nagging my mum to take me to Bisley for ages," Huckle recalls.
"By chance the British junior development squad were training there on that day, and I got invited to a weekend practice.
"So it was quite a quick progression for me.”
Huckle insists that shooting is a young person's sport - one which demands a huge level of physical stamina and durability.
"You have to be as physically fit as an athlete in any other sport. If you ask people to hold up a rifle, weighing between 8-12kg, for three-and-a-half hours, which is what shooters do in competition, they would almost certainly not be able to do it.
"In fact, if you simply asked someone to try and stand up for three and a half hours without moving, I guarantee they wouldn't be able to do it.
"They'd be begging to move within half an hour.
"I spend three hours a day, four days a week working at my local gym on improving my core stability - that's all the muscles around your stomach and lower back.
"They are the first places that most people feel the strain when they are shooting."
As well as physical strength Huckle insists that mental strength is vital for success.
“There's a lot that runs through your mind when you're a rifle-shooter.
“You have to focus really hard,' says Huckle. “but also let it happen naturally because you can't think too much about what you're doing - it has to flow and just happen.”
Although he acknowledges there are currently shooters in world competition who are "a class above" him, Huckle is determined to earn a place on the podium in London.
“My main goal is the Olympics in 2012,' he says. “I will definitely medal in that but for now I just want to get up there and hit that target, do what I do every day in training and concentrate on improving as much as I can.”
"If you train hard, if you train one more day than the others, maybe on Christmas Day, you can make your own luck."
For further information including athlete interviews please contact Becki Middleton (Rebecca.middleton@boa.org.uk) in Sydney on 00 61 44927962 or Philip Wilkinson (Philip.wilkinson@boa.org.uk) on 00 61 424 229971.
You will be able keep up to date with the latest news and results from Australia on the BOA website: http://www.olympics.org.uk/ayof09/home.aspx
For free images of Team GB athletes at the AYOF take a look at: http://smartset.com.au/teamGB/