Archer Alec Potts Helps Win Australia’s First Rio Medal

James Wong

Monash University business student Alec Potts helped get Australia’s Rio Olympics medal tally off to a fast start as part of Australia’s bronze medal winning archery team. 

Australia defeated China 6-2 in the bronze medal match to claim its first ever medal in an archery team event.

The 20 old year old Bachelor of Business student was competing in his first Olympics and said his success in Rio is motivation to add to his medal collection.

"It feels great to be a bronze medallist. I went into these games hoping to do well but I didn’t expect to come home with a medal from my first Olympics. So it really motivates me to see how much more I can do in four years’ time.”

Alec also made the round of 32 in the individual competition and said his best moments of the games were to finish both his competitions with a ten-point shot.

“To finish both my team and individual campaigns with a ten, that was something that I really wanted to do. I wanted to make sure that I had left everything I had out on the field.”

With such a busy schedule, Alec didn’t have much time to celebrate his medal winning performance but said he did find time to make a trip to McDonalds, just one of the Olympic Village’s many attractions.

“Village life was pretty cool, there was always plenty of stuff to do so really you didn’t even need to leave!”

After taking up archery in 2008, Alec made his international debut just three years later at the 2011 World Youth Championships, and represented Monash at the 2014 World University Games in Poland.

For the rest of 2016 Alec will be competing in domestic tournaments and putting his business skills to good use running his own archery business.

“I have a few domestic tournaments for the remainder of the year, and although I won’t be training as such, I’ll still be shooting regularly. 

“I will have more of a focus on running my business, Eliza Archery, and working with school groups etc. through the next 12 months to teach archery to a wider audience."