By Keiran Gorsky
Alison Langley is part of that cohort of young archers who fell in love with the sport long before she nocked her first arrow.
“I was really into archery from pop culture, like Hunger Games, Marvel, that type of thing,” she explains.
It’s become something of a common origin story ever since Katniss Everdeen graced the big screen. The first movie in the Hunger Games franchise coincided with an explosion in North American youth and women’s participation in archery that never fully subsided.
Unlike that beleaguered heroine, Langley is ecstatic to wield her bow and arrow in a wholly unfamiliar environment before an enthusiastic TV audience. The 17-year-old XQuest Archery and Ottawa Archers athlete will become the first woman to represent Canada in archery at the Youth Olympic Games.
The competition will take place between Nov. 6-10 at Abdoulaye Wade Stadium in Dakar, Senegal. It’s the first-ever International Olympic Committee-organized Games held in Africa, following a 2022 postponement in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Langley says of the opportunity. ”I’m feeling pretty good.”
The St. Paul High School student took up the sport in 2021 when her parents bought her archery lessons for her birthday. She had little acquaintance with the sport on her side of the TV screen beyond a toy bow she kept when she was younger.
Langley is reluctant to dub herself a natural, though she quickly came into her own. Racking up podium finishes in provincial and national competitions, it wasn’t long before she was shooting against adults, winning an XQuest club championship come 2022-2023.
Her big breakthrough came two summers ago at the 2025 World Archery Youth Championships in Winnipeg, where she and her Canadian teammates broke a national record with a ninth-place finish in the team event.
“That was a pretty amazing experience,” recalls Langley, who also placed 17th individually. “I feel like that helped me realize, ‘Oh, I could be pretty good at this.’”
The 2026 season has been her busiest yet. Langley traveled to Colombia for Pan American Youth Championships in the spring (where she placed 20th in the under-18 women’s event) and South Dakota for a rather inclement edition of World Archery Field Championships in September (finishing 12th of 12 U21 women).
At home, she won U18 gold medals at the Canada Cup East event on her home outdoor range at Twin Elm Rugby Park, at the Ontario Summer Games in Waterloo, and another gold for U21 at the nationals in Muskoka.
Langley also makes regular commutes to Toronto and Montreal to train with her coach Brandon Xuereb, who, incidentally, entered the sport after watching Lord of the Rings in 2007.
To cope with her hectic schedule, Langley has taken summer courses throughout high school so the cumulative workload never has the opportunity to overwhelm her – a difficult compromise to be sure, but one she’s made her peace with.
“It’s pretty worth it to me because I still have some free time in the summer,” she notes. “It allows me to do things like go to the Olympics. I think it’s definitely a worthy trade.”
A key area of focus this year has been adapting to ever-heightening pressure. Xuereb, a 30-year-old who remains a competitive archer in his own right, has been a major help in this respect. The 2023 Pan Am Games competitor seems to have a built-in barometer for mounting tension.
Langley recalled a moment from team selection trials where her coach noticed her nerves before she did.
“I got off the line and he was like, ‘Are you feeling a little nervous?’ And I said ‘No.’ I don’t know why I said no, because I was probably nervous. And then he was like, ‘Hold out your hand.’ And my hand was shaking,” she recounts.
Langley does her best to recreate the atmosphere outside of competitions. Before major events, she keeps herself on a shot clock in practice and has her parents call her arrows.
“Because if you’re in a medal match or something, [with] an announcer saying where each of your arrows land, you want to make sure that’s not going to get in your head,” she signals.
The pressure might be squarely on her shoulders, but she also wants to take a moment to think about her rapid ascent from everyone else’s perspective.
“If I’m feeling worried about disappointing everybody, I try to remember that they’re not disappointed in you. They’re just disappointed because they wanted the best from you. They also wanted you to get the gold,” she outlines. “And that means that they had a high level of faith in you and your performance. So it’s really something to be proud of.”
Her parents will travel with her on the long flight to Senegal, which includes a lengthy layover in Lisbon. Langley will also be accompanied by one of the first arrows she ever shot as an archer – a souvenir she carries around for good luck.
Langley is one of two Ottawa athletes part of Canada’s 28-member delegation for the 2026 Youth Olympic Games, which is a U18 event.
Bytown Blues rugby player Sam Knowlton played in the two-day men’s rugby sevens competition on Nov. 1 and 2. He scored Canada’s opening try in a close 24-17 loss to South Africa in the group stage.
The Canadians made the playoff round thanks to victories over Germany (17-10) and host Senegal (40-0) before falling 58-0 to champion France in the semi-finals and 36-5 to Argentina in the bronze medal match.
UniGym Gatineau athlete Mackenzie Grant of Ottawa, meanwhile, was named a non-travelling alternate for the women’s artistic gymnastics team.