Larry Godfrey (Photo by Dean Alberga/World Archery via Getty Images)
In these weeks leading towards the ‘big dance’ in Rio and increasing coverage for the sport, I am going to try and give some shape to my archery blog / social media ’empire’ (ha!) by doing a proper round up of things once a week, in the manner of Ollie Williams’ much-missed Frontier Sports. The plan is: every Friday at some point. Or more. Enjoy.
The last-ever World Cup stage in Medellin wrapped with Korea unbeaten in recurve finals matches, the first stage win for Brady Ellison since Lausanne 2014, and a clutch of gold medals for Sara Lopez. Full coverage here. The Brady final match, displaying the sort of dominant, steely World Cup confidence Ellison showed in 2010/11, is worth another watch. The Korean recurve machine wasn’t looking entirely bulletproof, but the wall held, and no-one proved capable of giving them a close match on Sunday. Antalya will hopefully be interesting.
Next week is the European Championships in Nottingham, UK, the last continental qualifier for the big dance. Although given the relative lack of press coverage so far, you’d be forgiven for not knowing it was on. I’ll be up there for the finals. See you there.
On the World Archery website, this week’s best Olympic archer of all time is Michele Frangilli, in at number 8. What a dude. Watch that draw right here:
A somewhat lively, topic-wandering discussion has erupted over at Archery Talk on the series.
No big surprises as India named their women’s team for Rio. After six stages of selection trials held over months, the Archery Association of India picked Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram and Laxmirani Majhi to represent India in Brazil. The men’s team are still looking for three spots in Antalya, they currently have just the one. World Archery roundup here, something from the Indian media here.
The Times Of India ran with the squad’s visit to a Hindu temple in Tirupati to pray for divine blessing immediately after selection – Archers don’t mind divine intervention.
Several other nations are close to picking their final threes and ones: Australia wrap it up this weekend.
General Olympics news: as the doping scandals and calls for Russia to be chucked out of Rio rumble on, there is better news about the Zika virus, even as Korea and others unveil mosquito-repelling Rio uniforms. It wasn’t all this doom and gloom a few months before London 2012, was it? Oh yeah… so it was.
Interesting, mildly candid interview with Team GB’s Larry Godfrey in the Bristol Post, although it couldn’t resist a Robin Hood reference, dooming it in Infinite Curve eyes to the absolute lowest of the lazy journalist low. Must try harder. Or just stop altogether.
Is Archery Really As Dope A Skill As It Is In Marvel Films? Leaving aside Betteridge’s Law Of Headlines, this is an entertaining – and by the usual standards, reasonably well researched – article about archery in popular culture. And they don’t mention L**s A****sen once! Bonus points!
Gratuitous Ki Bo Bae reference of the week? An English-voiceovered chat with her by FISU, home of the Universiade, end of last year. This will get the most clicks of any link on this post, by the way. I know. It tells me. 🙂
What else have we got? Oh yeah. A cat called Jake Kaminski. (From here. Pic by Kaela Thompson).
Bye!
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