Cuesta, from Granada, shot at London 2012 and many other international tournaments before moving into coaching in 2016. He coached the Spanish national side for six years, and accepted the head coach role for the USA at the end of last year, as the country prepares for a home Olympic Games.
“Joining one of the most successful delegations in the history of the Olympic Games is the greatest honour that can be given to a coach,” he said at the time.
He wasted no time. ”Before I came to the USA I had in my mind what I needed to change. One of the things I saw from Spain, because I was an archer in the past that when I went to the tournament I remember the team – everybody arrived at the field at the same time, everybody went to the training field together – they are really a team, right? I did not see that recently.”
“In my head I knew I needed to change the spirit of the thing. I think when everybody goes training together, everybody goes to lunch together, dinner together, everybody comes to the field together, everybody meets together every night to do a little meeting about the tournament, it makes a difference. So I wanted to create the spirit of a team again.”
Based at the national centre in Chula Vista, he inherited a system presided over by KiSik Lee for 18 years, which included the shot cycle known as the National Training System.
Will he continue with NTS? “It’s one of the biggest questions everybody asks me when I arrived in the USA,” he said.
“As a coach, you need to have your own method, you need to have your way to teach the athletes. And of course I follow NTS because I’m a sports scientist, and I believe in biomechanics. But I have experience with a Russian coach, with a Korean coach in the past, with a Slovenian coach, with different kind of coaches.”
“I love to learn new styles. If you want to start training with me from the beginning, you will learn NTS, but we have people on the team, for example Casey Kaufhold who doesn’t shoot NTS, I can work with her too, no problem.”
