Being an Olympian doesn’t come from London. It comes from the heart

Archer Joe Fanchin lives the B>U target.

You spend the time, effort, dedication, and sacrifice for the expectations. Your expectations. What if? You think to yourself. What if happen happened? Actually it did. But the ‘what if’, Joe was not hoping for. Joe from Chula Vista, CA missed the U.S.A Olympic archery team by one point.

Spending time on Mt. Olympus isn’t a trip to London but a state of mind. And Joe made sure to keep that target on task. As he states. Trying your best. Being greater than yourself. Knowing it’s all possible for anyone to do amazing things. His own words. Except, maybe, the ‘being greater than you’ verbatim. I added that in.

But when he tells me that the objective was to do a little at a time for nearly four years to become one of the top archers in the country, he is embodying B>U. And he is one of the top archers in the country. Joe was the Olympic alternate for Team USA. His determination, strength, diligence, stamina and all that accompany an Olympic athlete, Joe epitomizes. And with those attributes, Joe is an inspiration to all. And sometimes he needs to remind himself and we’re hoping, here, at B>U that we will remind him every day with our feature story.

“Every Olympian is just a regular person”. And every person is an Olympian as long as you try. Ask Joe. He proved it.

Art to archery

B>U feature Kristin Braun and Joe have started a business turning bows into unique pieces of art – SoCal Customs. One door opens the next. Or as we like to say in the B>U circles, one step at a time to be greater than yourself. And we hope others will follow.

Here are Joe’s B>U answers directly:

1. Why Archery?

As a kid I played quite a few different sports and enjoyed almost all of them, and somewhere in the middle I got to try archery. My uncle has always been a passionate bowhunter and mu university (USC) had a club. Over the next several years I got much more involved in the collegiate competition scene. That level of participation kept rising from about 2006 and culminated to winning many international team and individual medals and being named the alternate to the 2012 US Olympic Archery Team.

2. How long and how much do you train?

A typical training schedule in competition season is 7 hours of shooting a day (about 300 arrows) 5 to 6 days a week, with weight and cardio training 3 days a week.

3. How did you feel during the Olympic trials?

Joe’s either being stoic or wondering what’s for lunch.

Going into the last trials I was behind the third place by a little bit. After two days I was in third place by a fairly comfortable margin. On the last day of trials, I was very shocked to find out that, even though, I won plenty of matches and shot very well, my arrow average was on the low end and penalized me enough that the archer in fourth caught up and passed me.

4. How did you feel when you did not make the team?

I was very shocked at first. I couldn’t believe that everything had come down to a decision that close. If I had one more point or he had one less in about 750, I would have made the team.

5. What advice would you give one when training for such a goal and, during so, had setbacks reaching that goal?

The advice I would give them on what goals to pursue while training for the olympics are the internal ones. Everyone should give a lot of thought to why they want their goals, especially ones that require a lot of work and sacrifice.

Think ‘yellow’

Whether I make the team or not, the last three years of my life are behind me. If I could do it all over again I would approach it the same way. I would thoroughly enjoy myself, appreciate and do everything just a little bit better than last time. That way, whatever happens, whether you win a gold medal or just miss the Olympic team, it only makes you better.