Written by VIS scholarship athlete, Imogen Grzemski
My journey in archery began on my 12th birthday, when my Dad took me for an archery lesson at Hall’s Arrow; an indoor archery club near my hometown of Colchester, Connecticut.
At the time, it was just a side activity to do while my ankle recovered from a gymnastics fall. Little did my family and I know I’d end up representing my mother’s native country 8 years later.
It was a quick progression from attending Junior Olympic Archery Development trainings, to competing in club tournaments, then advancing to state, regional, and national level competitions.
By the time I was 15, I was travelling all across the United States to compete in the United States Archery Tournament series.
From leaving my public school to complete my high school diploma online, to traveling every weekend down the East Coast from Connecticut to Georgia, it was all needed to continue my development into high performance.
My teenage years were filled with school via laptop, training sessions, travel, and tournaments.
My family and I had been planning to move to Australia since I first visited at 5 years old and I announced that I wanted to move.
In 2020, that finally happened.
For my first 18 months in Australia, Melbourne was in and out of lockdowns, with no tournaments and limited training opportunities.
After a difficult time of isolation, in 2022, the Victorian Institute of Sport introduced its archery program, reaching out with a scholarship offer. All of a sudden, I was able to meet my new teammates and train with other high performance archers since moving two years prior.
This was a turning point in my career that reignited my dedication to the sport. To fully embrace this opportunity and the training environment of the VIS, I moved out of my Australian hometown of Winchelsea in regional Victoria to metro Melbourne.
"Being an athlete within the archery program at the VIS was a dream come true. The new support gave way for opportunities to evolve my training, ask questions, and develop on and off the range."
As a group, we had 2-3 training sessions per week at Lakeside Stadium, where we trained under the guidance of the program coach, followed by strength sessions in the gym.
Routinely, the other support staff joined our on range sessions, creating a holistic support system that extended from the shooting line. Experts in physiotherapy, strength and conditioning, nutrition, and performance lifestyle engaged in sessions and attended local tournaments to gain a deeper understanding of our needs as individual athletes and a team.
This made me realise how important is it to have a village around an athlete, especially in an individual sport.
The athlete support team that doesn’t attend every training session has been the most impactful to me. Their umbrella of guidance and insights has given me pivotal knowledge about how to improve my training in other ways away from the bow and arrow.
Sports psychology has helped me learn about how my mind works while I’m shooting, as well as exploring different tactics to be mentally resilient and present during competition.
Nutrition support has helped me meet my goals physically and learn how to properly fuel my body for training. Our competitions can involve being on the range all day, in any weather conditions, making how we fuel our body essential to performance.
The goal of physiotherapy is to support athletes through injury management and rehabilitation. Therefore, the goal was to not have a need to see them one-on-one.
On the other hand, physiotherapy support guided the archery athletes in teaching us how to warm-up and cool-down before and after sessions in training and competition to allow our body to be ready for performance and prevent injuries.
Strength and conditioning programs were tailored to our needs and goals depending on where in the season athletes are, training load, and weaknesses. At the end of a training cycle, athletes perform a series of tests to assess how strength is developing and determine any weaknesses, creating an ever-evolving cycle of development.
"These service providers work together to create the ideal landscape for development of an athlete by ensuring fluidity of training, recovery, and wellbeing. Their collective support has been invaluable in giving me the tools to know my body and work with it to set up an environment that enables success."
Archery is not as developed within the high performance sporting landscape as other sports, therefore is often undervalued in the elite setting. As an athlete, this created an outlook that archers have fewer opportunities and resources because we aren’t as important as other individual sports.
The VIS turned this attitude around for me by going above and beyond what I have seen in my career thus far. I had never seen a group of professionals as curious and open to possibility than the VIS support team.
The VIS motto is ‘Success in Sport and Life’ which is truly embraced by the staff. The performance lifestyle support was a safe haven for me to go to when I needed help with my career in every aspect.
When I joined the VIS, I was a part-time student struggling to manage my training and new university studies. With help from performance lifestyle, I learned how my studies and training can coincide with each other to maintain a manageable load while still reaching my goals.
Now just completed my final industry experience as part of my Bachelor of Sport Development, all of the placements and work experiences that were a part of my degree the performance lifestyle team helped me find.
From navigating university and job hunting for casual work to sorting moving out of home and apartment hunting, the performance lifestyle team guided me through.
Before the VIS, all of the work I had done was casual supermarket roles that felt like a different life to what I actually want from my career.
Engaging with the ‘Be Fit. Be Well’ community programs allow me to share my story and learnings from being an elite athlete to students all over the state. Other than being incredibly beneficial to my public speaking skills, having the ability to share my insights and story with children is incredibly rewarding when seeing them light up when talking about archery and sport.
This is a space where I have taken the opportunity to share my love for archery and give awareness to the next generation to show them opportunities. Also, to show that archery really is as cool as it looks in the movies!
At the VIS, there is always someone to talk to that is able to help you navigate troubles you may have. I am incredibly proud to say I am a scholarship athlete at an organisation that truly encompasses what it means to support athletes in every aspect to foster success in sport and life.
