Editor's note: this is part of a series of features being published on the various sports which make up the 2007 Canada Winter Games, and the athletes who will be representing the Yukon in them.

Most of the sports in the upcoming Canada Winter Games are founded on speed and agility.

Speed skating speaks for itself, for instance, as does the agility of artistic gymnastics. The stinging surprise of an upper cut in boxing comes out of nowhere.

Table tennis demands lightning reflexes, as does badminton, fencing, hockey, ringuette, wheelchair basketball, the alpine events, etc., all requiring speed and agility.

But when archery coach Rod Gareau stands behind the firing line, he lightheartedly warns his archers that any of them who take less than a minute to deliver their flight of three arrows will owe the team ten pushups.

He encourages patience and focus.

Each round of competition involves 60 arrows, in 20 flights of three. Two minutes is provided for each flight.

Theoretically, an archer could take up to 40 seconds to deliver each arrow, or any combination adding up to two minutes.

The target is 20 centimetres (eight inches) in diametre, at a distance of 18 metres or 60 feet from the firing line.

Circles graduate in points from six to 10, with the 10-point circle being the size of about a looney.

'Take your time,' Gareau urges his archers. 'Focus on what you want to do.'

As a sport based largely on individual performance, with the exception of the team competition, one never knows just what can happen, says the coach who's been involved with archery for the past 10 to 12 years.

Gareau has been to the North American Indigenous Games twice now; once as a coach, and once as a parent. At the indigenous games, however, archers move through a course, shooting at animal-sized targets.

For the Games, archers are confined to a position on the shooting line measuring 79 centimetres or 31 inches across. If they, or their bow, accidentally move outside the box, the archer next to them can call for a penalty if they feel they've been interfered with or distracted in any way.

This level of competition is serious.

'The Canada Games is one step away from the big league,' says the coach in an interview, while team members continue to pump arrow after arrow into the targets lined across the gym of Christ the King Elementary School.

'I mean there are going to be people here looking for Canada. The top archers will get noticed, and are going to get talked to.'

To accustom his athletes to the elevated level of competition, Gareau took them to a high-calibre shoot in Victoria a couple of weeks ago.

There was a fellow there, he recalls, who shot 594 out of a possible 600 with his 60 arrows.

'And he was mad because he missed six 10s out of 60 arrows.'

The Yukon archers, says Gareau, needed the Victoria trip to get a feel for the competitive atmosphere that will engulf the Games.

'I just want them to get their and do the best they can, and have fun,' he says. 'They have put a lot of effort into it, they have put a lot of time and work preparing for the Games.

For 17-year-old Claire Rudge, one of the 11 Yukon archers, the sport of archery presented itself in the form of a friend who used to shoot while visiting her family farm.

Rudge took it up as she found it less demanding than other sports she had tried.

But archery is not without its physical requirements keeping the draw taunt while maintaining a precise and pointed fix on the target.

'Keeping your focus long enough,' she replies when asked how archery challenges her most. 'When you get tired, it gets tough.'

'After 30 arrows you start to lose concentration,' teammate Korey Smith adds quickly. 'It's a little battle.

'And then your arms start telling you to stop,' says Rudge.

Rudge, as three-year veteran who shoots with a recurve bow, hadn't yet chosen a goal for herself as of last week.

'But I set a goal of 300 for Victoria and I made 329,' she points out.

Smith, a nine-year veteran of the sport who shoots with a compound bow, hit 535 in Victoria.

'I'm aiming to shoot 550,' the Grade 12 student says of his Games goal.

The Yukon will be represented by two archers in each of the four categories: Smith, 17, and Logan Fink, 15 will compete in the men's compound bow competition, with Andy Pauls, 16, serving as alternate. Brian Hookey, 14, and Luke Ragetti, 15, will represent the Yukon in the men's recurve category, with Wilfred Johnston serving at alternate.

Gwendeloyn Cardinal, 18, and CharBelle Silverfox, 15, will compete in the women's compound competition. Kristen Van Bibber, 15, and Rudge will represent the territory in women's recurve, with Victoria Medcalfe serving as alternate.,

Each competition in each category will begin with 32 archers or so. The top 16 will move on, then the top eight, and then four.

'If they don't make the top 16, they are done,' says Gareau, rather matter-of-factly.

For the coach, however, the experience is worth as much as they result. And who knows.

'On any given day, the athletes can have a good day or bad day,' he says. 'So I am hoping they have a good day come the Canada Games.

The archery competition will be held at Porter Creek Secondary School in week-one of the Games, beginning with practice sessions on Sunday, Feb. 25.