TURNING PRO: RECURVE

In Bow issue 135 we looked at professional compound archery; a difficult, but not impossible goal to achieve with enough talent, practice and motivation. But what about recurve? Most full-time recurve archers are funded by a state Olympic system, which in most Western countries, given the size of the sport, funds just a small handful of archers to shoot and compete full-time.

Many recurve archers have also moved into sidelines in elite coaching, manufacturing (such as Italy's Michele Frangilli) and/or merchandising and media (as with the Dutch Triple Trouble team.)

Some of the elite names can pull in a great deal of money for sponsorship, known as 'contingency', and one of the best-known Western recurve archers is thought to make around $200,000 a year from the various strands of his career. You have to be well-known to be supported by a manufacturer