An Illinois Olympian

BY GARY THOMAS
PHOTOS BY ADELE HODDE

When Mason City resident Vic Wunderle won silver and bronze medals in this year's Olympics, the newspapers listed it as a "surprise" finish. But we knew this young man had Olympic potential a long time ago.

Since 1985, in fact. Outdoor Highlights, the forerunner of Outdoorlllinois, ran a story about the nine-year-old fourth grader who had taken a nice white-tailed buck and was already winning all kinds of archery competitions against much older competitors.

The silver and bronze medals he picked up in Australia are just a couple of the awards this 24-year-old archer has won. He also earned three golds and one silver at the 1995 Pan Am games, and one gold and one silver at the 1999 Pan Am games. Add to that 24 national and two world championships.

Olympic archer Vic wunderle holds up a copy of a 1985 "Outdoor Highlights," the forerunner of "Outdoor Illinois" magazine. The magazine included a story about Wunderle's archery skills when he was a 9-year-old. Below, Wunderle pulls arrows from one of the targets in his back yard.

With those numbers, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that the entire Wunderle family are renowned archers. Vic's sister Dawn has five national titles; his sister Sally has 17 national and three world championships; and father Terry has four nationals and one world title. Terry also won the first Illinois Sportsman of the Year competition.

So why did the newspapers say his Sydney medals were a "surprise?"

"I wasn't shooting well early in the year, so I'm sure some people discounted my chances of winning a medal," Wunderle said. "But I wasn't worried about shooting well early. I was setting my training schedule so I would peak at the Olympics."

Wunderle said there are always 15 to 20 archers who are good enough to win the event at any Olympic or world class event, and that all the American contenders on the team always have a shot a winning.

But don't think it comes easy. An archer's training schedule leaves little time for other outside interests. Early in the year, Wunderle said he was

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Wunderle shows off the silver and bronze medals he won at the summer Olympics in Sydney.

shooting about four hours a day, then lifting weights and doing cardiovascular training. During peak training, he shoots eight to 10 hours a day, or about 400 arrows.

If you stop to figure it out, pulling a 50-pound pull recurve bow 400 times is the equivalent of lifting about 20,000 pounds a day. That doesn't include the lifting and holding of the bow for several hours. Now add the 70 meters he has to walk to and from the target to retrieve his arrows, and you can see that archery can be a strenuous sport.

Wunderle began shooting a bow when he was just five and entered his first tournament when he was six. He started shooting using a compound bow, but switched to a recurve, which is the standard competition bow. He shot a 1300 score when he was just 15 years old, the youngest archer to have accomplished that feat.

During this year's Olympic competition, Wunderle worked his way through the competition before losing 113 to 106 in the gold medal round.

"During the competition, you shoot 12 arrows at a target 70 meters [about 77 yards] away," Wunderle said. "The archer with the high score moves on to the next round."

The 10 ring—or bulls eye—is about the size of a grapefruit. During Wunderle makes a necessary adjustment to the sight on his bow while target practicing an earlier round with an 18-arrow pass, Wunderle shot a 171, with about 50 percent of the arrows in the 10 ring and the other half in the nine.

During the final round of competition, there was a stiff wind. Archers were having to aim about two feet to the side of where they wanted to hit to compensate for the drift. You can imagine what a sudden gust of wind could do to an archer's score.

"Archery is a serious sport, but a friendly one, too," Wunderle said. "For the most part, you compete against the same people you have been competing against for years—a small group of very serious people. We all tend to stay in the same hotels and eat together. I've known the guy who won the gold medal for nine years, and the archer who won the bronze is a good friend whom I've known for six years."

Wunderle is a senior majoring in wildlife and fisheries science at Texas A&M University, but he took all last year off to concentrate on the Olympics and plans to take this year off to participate in some upcoming archery competitions.

"The nice thing about this sport is that you can continue to compete long after most athletes have retired," Wunderle said. "One of my teammates at Sydney was 45 years old, so I could conceivably shoot in two or three more Olympics."

Wunderle currently is trying to make a few dollars to help offset some of the expenses associated with competition by doing speaking engagements and shooting demonstrations at school assemblies and sports clubs. He also hopes his two medals might attract some new sponsors to help subsidize his competition. His current sponsors include: Matthews Archery Co. (bows). Copper John Co. (sights), Nikon Corp. (optics), Sims Vibration Laboratories (limb savers) and the BCY String Co.

"Archery is a fun sport," Wunderle said. "I've been shooting for nearly 19 years now, and I plan to compete for some time to come. You can devote as much attention to the sport as you want to. And it's a great family sport. I'm sure it's something I'll be doing for the rest of my life."

Wunderle makes necessary adjustment to the sight on his bow while target practicing.

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