While on holiday in Turkey a few years back, a teenage Alex Wise and his family picked up a bow and arrow as a fun activity to do together.
Now, almost a decade later, Wise has been selected to represent Great Britain at archery at the Olympics in Paris this summer.
“We enjoyed it so much that when we got home, we searched Archery GB’s club finder, found a club close to home and pretty much joined up straight away,” Wise told BBC Look North.
The club was Bowmen of Walker in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where Wise would meet the chairman and his future coach David Harrison.
“He [Harrison] taught me how to shoot, how to get to a good level – the archery GB Olympic squad got me further but he was who I would give the credit to,” Wise added.
This will be the 23-year-old’s first Olympics but he was part of the squad that earned qualification for Tokyo 2020, only to be omitted from the trip to Japan after the pandemic hindered his progress.
“Covid damaged the momentum that we had and affected how certain people train so when it came to doing the trials, I just slightly missed out,” Wise said.
“That was kind of gutting but I think it spurred me on.”