Brian Christensen

Hits the bull's-eye

by caroline welch

The checklist has 33 separate reminders. Each time he stands to take aim, this athlete takes mental note of where his 68-inch bow is positioned, the feel of specific muscles in each arm and the precise angle of the wooden, feathered arrow.

Brian Christensen is a junior sports medicine major at CSU, but he is also a world champion archer.

Christensen recently won his most fierce competition yet: the United States Intercollegiate National Championship, beating 500 of the country’s collegiate-level archers.

But a long history of wins precedes this competition.

In 2002 and 2003 he traveled to Las Vegas and won the World Archery Festival competition, making his seven state championship titles seem like child’s play.

Yet, while most competitive archers start as small children, Christensen’s involvement was more of a fluke.
When Christensen was an eighth-grader at Powell Middle School in Littleton, his gym class included a two-week session on archery, and that’s all it took to get him hooked.

 “I thought it was really, really fun,” Christensen said. “I really have no coordination for any sport that has to do with a ball, so soccer, football and baseball were out.”

After the two-week taste, Christensen began taking private lessons through Bear Creek Archery in Littleton. Within four months, Christensen shot at his first competition. His true talent with bows and arrows was realized when he won second place at that competition-the Colorado State Indoor Junior Championships, local competition in  Lakewood.

“It’s been my life passion so far,” he said.

And it’s the challenge that keeps him going.

Christensen said he tries to make each shot the same as the one before. His muscles have to remember the exact position they were in when he hit the target. That’s why each practice consists of 200-300 shots in four to five hours.

“There’s a lot of things to think through,” he said. “The trick is to do it so much you don’t have to think about it.”
One of the biggest challenges Christensen has faced so far in his career is to keep going when the coach isn’t watching.

When Christensen moved to Fort Collins to attend CSU, he left his coach behind, making self-determination the only thing getting him to the range. But somehow, he said, practice always comes first.
“I think it keeps me out of trouble,” he said.

Because of Christensen’s successful shots, his career has taken him beyond U.S. boarders for worldwide competition. He has competed in China, Australia, Turkey, England, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Russia, India and Japan. His most recent trip was to South Korea, where he set down his bow to critique other equipment.

A Korean company, called Win and Win, has been testing new bows and arrows and wanted a Western perspective. The goal in creating new equipment, Christensen said, is to find a balance between speed and accuracy.

While speed is important to get the arrow from the archer to a target up to 90 meters (about the length of a football field) away as quickly as possible to avoid wind interference. However, it is also important to minimize vibration of the bow, which, while Christensen said it doesn’t hurt, can cause tendentious.

Although Christensen usually travels to win, he said there is an element of cooperation, and an eagerness to explore other communities.

In Eastern cultures, for example, many of the area’s best archers have trained since they were four years old. Many archery schools concentrate on the sport alone, training some of the world’s most talented archery athletes.
But while the boundaries between East and West seem stark when it comes to world politics and war, the lines are drawn a bit softer when it comes to this form of weaponry.

“We bring the West there and the East here,” Christensen said. “As long as we can make it a better sport, I’m all for it.”

Christensen said his world travels have opened his eyes to other cultures and brought him in to contact with amazing people.

“It’s made my life so much better to travel around the world and see what others don’t get to see,” he said.
But the world travels, Olympic-style archery gear and championship titles come at a price. The bow Christensen uses costs $2,000 and each arrow, made of an aluminum tube and wrapped with a layer of carbon, costs $50.
“It’s expensive, but it’s worth it,” said Debi Christensen, Brian Christensen’s mom. “It’s been a pretty amazing thing. It’s unusual, but I’m real thankful he found his passion.”

Bonuses and financial help come when archers become good enough to merit scholarships and sponsorships.
Christensen is sponsored by six different archery companies including Easton, Hyot USA, Alpen Optics and Sureloc. He was also selected as a full-ride scholarship recipient at Texas A&M until they cut funding to their archery program and Christensen decided to attend CSU.

Christensen hopes to share his passion with students at CSU by starting an archery club. To help start the team, contact Brian via email at christensenbrian@yahoo.com