Vegas Shoot winner Liko Arreola: Quality over quantity

Vegas Shoot compound women’s champion Liko Arreola, along with her mum, Teri, gave a revealing interview to the Muthaship podcast by Hawaii News Now where the 14-year-old sensation opened up about a number of topics.

Hailing from Hawaii, perhaps better known for the sport of surfing than archery, Arreola has been making waves globally of late.

In the past 12 months, she has won back-to-back Vegas Shoot titles, including shooting a perfect 900 this year then winning a three-way shoot-off against Denmark’s world number two Tanja Gellenthien and fellow USA archer and world number eight, Paige Pearce – who she also saw off in 2021.

Arreola rise has been phenomenal.

She’s not yet broken into World Archery format events – and doesn’t have a world ranking. But that’s seems like nothing but a matter of time.

“I first started archery by watching the Disney movie Brave,” revealed Arreola. “My parents gave me my first bow and then I started to like the sport more and get better bows and better equipment. I started archery for only my dad mostly – he’s my coach and used to do archery before.”

Arreola lives in Makawao, home to a population of just over 7000 people on the island of Maui. She reflected on her success in Vegas, a six-and-a-half hour flight away.

“Throughout the whole tournament I was a little confused, a bit nervous, but I tried my best and that's all I could do,” she said.

“My parents try to keep me as calm as possible [and my dad said] ‘don't focus on anybody else, just focus on yourself and do what we came here to do; to compete and execute the shots’.”

“I was more confused than nervous because I didn't really know the format throughout the shoot so all my dad said was ‘shoot ‘til they kick you out’,” added Arreola about if she knew she would take the title. “I was trying my best, staying calm and was a bit more nervous, too, because I knew there was a crowd behind me, watching me [and] I wasn't really used to that.”

Liko was the only one of the three women in the championship arena to not miss the middle.

“I wasn’t really focusing on where I was shooting at, I was just trying to execute my shots and focusing more on them more than my scores. I take a breather each shot and try to keep my mind focused as possible and try to erase every noise that’s around me or anything.”

That resulted in a scholarship worth around 10,000 USD for winning plus contingencies, taking the total up to “about 17,000 USD in total”, according to Liko’s mum Teri, who praised the work ethic of her daughter in training.

“If you really want it then you have to train for it, that’s how you get to become good,” said Liko when asked if her success was down to being born with skill, luck or practice. “I came far with this sport because I train very hard. I work every day with my dad trying to get better and better. I try to work on my shots as best they can so I can compete with everybody and try to just do what I want to do: win tournaments.”

“I'm not too sure about how many hours I train. I try to keep it short and simple so that I can remember each shot and if I feel good about it, then I'm good with my shots and I'll go to the next day.”

“It’s quality over quantity.”

At home in Maui, Liko has a “target in the backyard which is around 30 yards and two more targets in the garage and inside my house,” and admits that she has “…always got to yell to my parents that I am shooting in the house”. Her practice regime has gained the interest of those she has competed against in recent months.

“When we go to different tournaments like Vegas a lot of them [other archers] can't understand what the process is that she goes through,” explains Teri. “They ask a lot of questions, especially to my husband, because they’re trying to understand their training. In Maui we don’t have very much, we don’t have a range, there’s no clubs or anything like that, so it's a little difficult to understand her training.”

“A lot of people are also surprised that we travel this far because there's nothing back home. We have to travel to the mainland in order for her to compete, so they’re kind of surprised that we do that.”

In the podcast, Liko estimated around 29 archers came from Hawaii to the Vegas Shoot, with mum Teri adding that a few were Liko’s age and a mixture of both compound and recurve archers.

Liko was one of two young winners of this year’s Vegas Shoot, alongside 15-year-old Bodie Turner.

“I’ve been seeing more people around my age shooting archery,” said Liko. “It's really cool competing against people close to my age, but it’s just very fun to shoot around anybody because I rarely do that back home, I have nobody to shoot with.”

“Every time I come to the mainland, and we go to tournaments, it's really fun for me. They (other competitors) really treat me the same as everybody else and I like that.”

Mum Teri was a little bit more pragmatic about the opportunities for competition.

“From where we are you have to pick and choose which competitions you’re going to compete in,” she said. “It’s not like the mainland where we can just drive, we have to really plan and it costs a lot.”

Despite her young age, archery has already had an effect on Liko’s life and she has clear targets for the future.

“I guess archery has changed me because I'm seeing a lot of different things and getting good scholarships that can help me with my schooling,” she said. “I get to travel around the world, seeing new things, meeting new people and competing against all different types of people in different parts of the world. I am hoping to continue to do this and maybe one day I could compete against the men more. That's my whole goal right now.”

And for the archer who discovered the sport from a Disney film, she neatly summed up the podcast with a quote from the man himself.

“I found this quote from Walt Disney: ‘All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them’. 

“If you really, truly love something, just go for it,” she added. “No matter what anybody tells you. Just go for it.”