Homer’s hard work rewarded as she prepares for maiden World Cup

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT is presented by WIAWIS.

Quite often new members of teams are slowly filtered through countries’ pathway programmes with under 21s or even younger archers selected for one or two senior international competitions a year before consolidating themselves in the squad as they get older. 

Great Britain’s Natasha Homer however has had an alternative route to the top as she prepares to shoot in her first Hyundai Archery World Cup in Central Florida this week, the first of four stages in 2025, and her first outdoor international tournament.

The 25-year-old recurve archer has only competed indoors at the GT Open twice (2023, 2024) and Nimes this past January on the world stage.

“I think it’s a bit surreal the archers I'm going to be competing with and against, people I’ve watched on the international stage for years,” said Homer on her newfound environment of archery’s premier international circuit.

“It’s crazy being in the same division as them. Michelle Kroppen, Lisa Barbelin, even (Penny Healey), to be fair, as my teammate.”

As told by her age, it was no breakout performance from a world or continental youth championships that booked Homer onto the plane to the USA along with teammates Healey, Patrick Huston, Ella Gibson and Ajay Scott but a sharp increase in performance.

Homer hadn’t scored above 600 across 72 arrows before 2024 but smashed her personal best in a national competition last year dropping 665 at the start of Britain’s domestic season.

This ignited the ball to start rolling and achieve her “dream” since she first picked up a bow in 2014.

“To have a big jump in performance I was able to basically commit to stuff like this, which is really awesome. There were some technical changes over the 23/24 indoor season and a couple of kit changes.”

“The combination of that and then moving to Telford near the national centre and being able to train pretty much full time. I swapped from basically wrong spine arrows at the start of 2023 to appropriately spined arrows in 2024 so that was a big difference.”

Having graduated with a master’s in Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh in November, Homer now works for them remotely as a business development assistant and shot for the university’s archery society along with recently crowned Indoor World Series silver medallist Sarah Prieels and Lac La Biche world field championships bronze medallist Jake Walsh.

The high quality pedigree of the club has clearly rubbed off on the Briton to get her to where she is now, shooting better than ever having also equalled the British national record for a portsmouth - 60 arrows shot in ends of three on a 60cm target face at 20 yards - in an indoor regional competition in January, hitting 595 out of 600.

Tirelessly training, working and studying from six in the morning to the evening during her master’s year has also no doubt tipped Homer to the next level, giving her a deserving sense to represent her country overseas, symbolised by her new WIAWIS bow, one of her sponsors this season.

“It was just really cool to get sent to and then open it and be like, ‘Oh my God this is mine’ like I’ve earnt it I guess,” said Homer on her new white and golden bow.

“It was really fun setting it up out of the box. It’s only the second riser I've had for a brand new one so that was a really cool moment of ‘I’ve made it!’”

Eleven years in the making, Natasha Homer can now finally call herself an international elite athlete, accompanying the best in class of her country and the world.  

But now she is at this point, an extraordinary opportunity presents itself for her to make as big a mark internationally as she has done domestically. 

Being in form at home is one thing, being in form on the other side of the world is another.

“It’s my first time travelling to a different time zone, first time at a world cup. It’s a massive learning curve so, I think mainly trying to focus on getting the experience, finding my feet and learn how everything works.”

“It’s what I’ve dreamt of since I’ve done archery so, it’s awesome to get to this point and be here.”