Eight-time national freestyle unlimited champion Justin Olexienko, 35, has been well-acquainted with that feeling at the World Field Archery Championships in Wagga this week.

“Everything seems to be going really well,” he said.

“I really started pushing myself nine years ago to see how far I could go in the sport. Everything seems to be working.”

Three of five rounds in, Olexienko and runner-up Shaun Pratt, 46, lead the pack by a significant margin.

The pair were on Australia’s Archery World Cup bronze-medal-winning team in China in April.

“The international events, the high profile events help," Olexienko said.

“You just know how to harness the nerves a bit better.”

They finish each other’s sentences like an old, married couple, agreeing with each other on everything.

Well, almost everything.

In the marked style, Pratt’s accustomed to coming second to Olexienko.

What gives Olexienko the edge?

“I’m younger," he said.

“It’s not that, some people shoot one form better, others shoot another form better,” Pratt said.

Pratt has the edge in unmarked events.

“I do it more," he said.

“I like the challenge of it, the challenge of being able to walk around the course and judge the distance to the target, and manage to get it.”

As the profile archers of the competition, rivals pick their brains, and they’re more than happy to help.

“We give them a push in the general direction,” Olexienko said.

“If someone’s about to make a mistake you normally pull them up pretty quickly, you go, ‘no, no, no, stop.’ If you’re going to get beaten, you want to get beaten properly, not by making a mistake.”

Pratt agreed.

“And if you’re going to win, you want to do it on you’re own merit,” he said.

“We like the competition, we want to build it up, with 20 or 30 people at the event around the same score.”

Their friendship has worked to their favour.

“You know it’s going to be more relaxing because we know each other,” Olexienko said.

“It makes it easier.”

“It’s always good to catch up and stir the buggery out of each other,” Pratt said.

“In each state there aren’t enough really a good field of archers, like there are overseas. We only get to catch up at these national and world events, it’s always fun.”

As for the pecking order, and always running second?

“He’s used to it,” Olexienko said.

“Shaun always comes close to touching me up.”

“It’s always an incentive, trying to catch him, he tries to stay ahead,” Pratt said.

"That’s the way it goes.”