14-year Old Schoolboy Breaks Flight Archery World Record by 150m

The length of ‘five football pitches’ was all it took for Zak Crawford to get into the Flight Archery record books. The best part: one of his arrows hit the ground at 500 meters, almost 150 meters more than the current world record.

Expressing delight and astonishment, Zak said, “I have been practising really hard but I certainly didn’t expect to come away from the competition with three world records, I’m over the moon. I managed to get the technique right on the day and I couldn’t believe it when the arrows went so far.”

If that’s not enough, Zak has managed to get these three world records at the tender age of 14, all of which were broken by participating in the senior under-35 lb class, junior recurve and compound categories of the Northern Counties Championships held at RAF Church Fenton, Yorkshire.

He was introduced to archery at the age of six but quickly switched over to Flight Archery when attending a competition with his granddad’s friend. As he recalls, taking up this sport wasn’t easy as he was too young to handle a bow which is quite heavy for children his age.

Nowadays, he trains for three hours every night at the Welland Valley Archery Club, shooting almost 1000 arrows per session, a self-initiated regimen that has helped him achieve so much at such a young age.
Yet Zak is not willing to rest on his laurels, as his ambition is to not only break his Flight Archery record of 500 meters but wants to compete in target shooting at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, and is currently looking for a sponsor.