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Hi everyone!
It's me, Bernardo Oliveira, here in No Alvo.
I'm in Antalya, Turkey,
for the 2nd Stage of the Archery World Cup.
And I have here with me Juan Carlos Holgado,
spaniard, ex-athlete, and actual Events Director of World Archery,
which is the International Archery Federation.
Juan Carlos,
Hello Bernardo, it is a pleasure.
it's a pleasure to have you here for this talk.
The first question I wanted to ask you is:
How was the creation of the World Cup?
How was this idea of trying to recreate the World Championships
four times a year, and what were the challenges?
Some time ago archery had only 2 important events:
the World Championships and the Olympic Games.
The Olympic Games happen every 4 years,
and the World Championships every 2 years.
And it was difficult to put archery on the TV,
to give it more visibility.
Then, on 2005, our new president, professor Ugur Erdener,
decided to start a circuit that we had been discussing for many years,
though we hadn't started: the World Cups.
The idea of the World Cup is to have 4 competitions and the final,
so it's is 5 in total, every year,
to have more images of archery on TV.
So we started that.
It began in 2006 with the first World Cup, in Porec, Croatia.
And since then, we've been doing
4 World Cups per year, the final,
plus the World Championships every 2 years, plus the Olympic Games.
So, every year we get around 6 to 8 opportunities
to get archery on the TV.
We started very good, and we had a lot of success.
And the proof of this is that
in the London Olympics many TV channels now know our sport,
our stars, like you,
know the athletes, the rules.
And has given us a very good TV audience
that has secured our spot in the Olympics.
Yes, yes.
And in such a event like this one,
we see all this structure for the finals,
something that has been developed, and that has pleased so many people.
What is your job as Events Director in an event like the World Cup?
The event starts 2 or 3 years before.
There's a candidate city, or federation that wants to host a World Cup.
So I have to travel, meet them, avaluate the sites,
the facilities, volunteers...
And when we see that they have the capability of hosting a World Cup,
starts the preparation for the event.
We have 2 or 3 meetings every year,
to decide what to do, who will do what.
I have an event team, about 30 people,
in which there are judges, scoring staff, TV staff,
there's the filming team, the technology integration team,
marketing, media...
World Archery brings this whole team,
and the organizing committee provides volunteers,
the venues and the facilities.
And it comes the date of the event.
We arrive 2 or 3 days before,
to prepare all the equipment for scoring,
facilities and sponsors.
And during that week the work is really hard.
The competition starts, the qualifiation round takes place,
and when the elimination rounds start,
half of the team comes here, to prepare the finals venue.
We always want to hold the finals in a special venue.
A venue that looks atractive to the audience and to the TV.
And here in Antalya it is the beach.
Nothing better than the beach.
In Brazil you have a lot of sun, but in Europe, not so much.
The germans, norwegians, get very enthusiastic about competing on the beach.
Every special venue has it's tricks.
Here on the beach the wind is always an issue...
But the idea is to have the competition in special venues,
iconic and known venues so that the TV images get more interesting
and reach more people.
No doubt about it, and it is a work that is being really well-done,
because it is having lots of success.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for having a good and positive return.
It's a very hard work, but it's worth it.
Now a bit about your career as an athlete,
I think I haven't mentioned this:
Juan Carlos took part in the spanish team
that won the gold medal in the Barcelona 92'.
Well, at the age of 20
you were on the team that went to the Seoul 88' Olympics.
And how was this experience of going to the Olympics, very young,
and 4 years before the Olympic Games that really mattered to you?
Well, going to the Olympic Games is the dream of most of the athletes,
but for me it was special
because I started archery when I was 9 years old.
At 10 I was already dreaming about the Olympic Games.
And another dream I had was to know an asian country.
Like China, Japan, Korea...
I started training, started having good results,
and had a clear objective: Olympics.
And in Seoul 88' two of my dreams came true:
visiting an asian country and going to the Olympic Games.
My first Games were very special
because I was not well-prepared, we were amauteurs,
we trained as much as we could, but on ourselves.
Once the Seoul Olympics were through,
we had a much better preparation for Barcelona 92'.
We joined a Plan for Olympic Sports,
an organization that was created to support the preparation for the Olympics.
So we started to have mental training,
physical training, someone to take care of our nutrition,
somebody to assist on equipment issues, like tuning...
It was a technical team.
In 3 years we went from being in a low level to the high level.
And we got to Barcelona, not being the favorite team,
but we were one of the best 5.
We had the good fortune
and did the good job of, on that exact moment,
winning against the right teams,
winning the final and winning the gold medal.
Then our sport changed in our country,
from being a sport of indians, or a sport of Robin Hood,
to being an olympic sport, and well-reknowed.
Yes.
Besides the 88'Olympics, how was your prepation,
how was your training, and mental preparation for the Barcelona Games?
I've always said that an archer needs to train profiossionaly.
Not in terms of money, but in terms of dedication.
Our sport requires a lot of time to do the technical preparation for the shot.
Also you have to tune the equipment,
do physical preparation and mental preparation.
And it is very difficult to do this all at once.
It takes a lot of time.
Before Barcelone I used to train around 4 hours a day.
Including weekends.
I could shoot for 5 or 6 hours when I had more time.
When we qualified for the Olympics, after being in the Seoul 88' Games,
we started training profissionaly.
We had a fund, some money.
Then we trained for 7, 8, sometimes 11 hours daily.
There was a lot to be done until we reached elite level.
For 3 years we worked hard, because that was our job, our profession.
Very nice.
Well, just to finish,
what can you say to someone that is watching us,
that watches all the finals on ArcheryTV,
that follows the Win&Win Archery Fan Reporter,
what do you have to say for someone that
wonders if will be able to shoot in a World Cup someday?
Well, for a World Cup, every archer should enjoy what he or she does.
It is very difficult to persist in archery if you don't enjoy,
like you do when training.
It's not only about competing, it's about a proccess,
of improving yourself every day.
Once you enjoy practicing the sport, if you want to compete,
it's clear that you need to work seriously,
to do the best possible in each moment, to dedicate many hours,
to be constantly thinking about your goals, then you'll make it.
Once you're on competitive level, you join the national team.
When you qualify for your national team, then comes the World Cup.
In my time, 25 years ago,
the championships were very dull for everyone,
except for the archers.
We used to train a lot, shoot for a week...
It was very difficult to go on.
Nowadays it's different.
Thanks to all the rule changes, the spectators can be very close to the archers.
The archers have TV cameras. It's a show, really.
That's why I encourage all archers to train,
make it to their national team and come to the World Cup.
It's fun. It's beautiful.
And it's part of a change that's being made in the history of archery.
Yes, no doubt about it. A change that is being made in an awesome way.
Muchas gracias.
Juan Carlos,
Bernardo,
Thank you so much, it was a pleasure.
Thank you.
See you next time, good luck with all the work.
See you in the World Cups, and for sure in Rio, Brazil!
Yes, see you.
Thank you, good luck, thank you all!