If you're aiming to be in the Olympics one day, you may want to take up archery. Well, it's actually not that easy, but once Belton boy has been perfecting his aim for the past eleven years.
You might say Garrett Lovelace has a good shot at the Olympics one day.For now, he goes to as many archery competitions as he can.
Ii typically do first or really well in those," he says.
In fact, Garrett did win first place in archery at a national competition.
He and his mom went to Pennsylvania for the 2012 NRA Youth Hunter Education Challenge. First he was number one in Texas and now he can say he's number in the nation.
"Very proud of him," says his mother Kathy Lovelace. "Very very proud. He's works very hard at it. He's just naturally gifted at it but he does work very hard at it."
But this isn't your typical archery. Garrett shoots 3-D archery and that's very different from the Olympics.
For one, Garrett uses a release. "In the Olympics that they use fingers for recurves but a release is much more accurate," he said.
Garrett's target is also life-like, shaped as bear or deer."In the Olympics they shoot paper targets," he said.
Garrett also uses a compound bow and the Olympics use a recurve bow. But that shouldn't shy him away from shooting for the Olympics.
"He's good enough," said Kathy. "He does have the talent if he wants to but it does take a lot of dedication and it has to be his choice but we'll support him all the way."
"I still have a long way to go with the compound first, with recurves, it's a little bit bigger challenge, it's something to step up to definitely," said Garrett.
It's a challenge that he says may take another 5 years of practice. That is, if he wants to be right on target and take home the gold.
Archery had its debut in the Olympics in 1900 but was not featured after 1908.
The sport returned in 1972 and has stayed in the Olympics games ever since.
