Archives For Olympics

we’ve got a new Song for you

May 8, 2013 — Leave a comment

SongIWoo_rdax_299x300

Team GB has a South Korean archery coach once more. Song I Woo has joined the Archery GB team. She’s listed as ‘technical coach’ at the moment.

She’s the coach whose archers wowed the world at London 2012, overturning the status quo. Now Song I Woo, the woman who coached Mexico’s Aida Roman and Mariana Avitia to Olympic silver and bronze, is hoping to have the same impact in Britain.

Song I, 28, has joined Archery GB as its new Performance Coach. She will be working with the whole performance squad but will be focusing much of her attention on the academies and our budding young stars.

And she couldn’t be happier about it. “I love it here,” she said. “I love England and I love the countryside. Everyone here is so friendly. They help me every day and support me.”

What led the former Korea women’s team member to Lilleshall? She turned to coaching after injuring her shoulder in 2006 and was recruited by Mexico immediately after Korea won the World Championships in 2009. It took just over two years to take Mexico from relative obscurity in archery to Olympic glory.

Three months after the Olympics she was approached by Performance Director Sara Symington and Olympic Coach Lloyd Brown. The task? To take a fresh, objective look at British archery.

So what does she think? There needs to be more young archers coming through so that talent can be spotted early. And she wants to work with Lloyd and Paralympic Coach Michael Peart on making the squad stronger.

“I don’t want to change alignment but I do want to change technique a little to make them work more rhythmically. It’s going back to basics, almost like starting again. I want them to work harder and longer. More activity and more focus. And it will take maybe four years.

It will be a bit of a culture change, she thinks, but it will be an extension of the work already being done by Lloyd, Michael and all the Archery GB staff

And there is potential for great success. Korea, she says, is too serious about archery. It’s non-stop hard work on basic correct technique from a very young age. And Mexico is, perhaps, not serious enough. “I think it is all the sunshine. It’s fun, a party. They are very laid back.” Britain is somewhere between the two, she says.

Sara Symington is delighted at Song I’s move to the UK. “It’s great to have Song I join our coaching workforce,” she said.

“As we start to develop our performance pathway she will be instrumental in increasing the quality and quantity of robust competitive archers. That will raise the level of competition and lead to higher standards which, in turn, increases our chances of succeeding on the world stage.

“She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience but also a great sense of humour!”

Bold mine. Although I could have sworn that Lee Woong (also South Korean, natch) was the head coach for Mexico at London 2012 – which lead to that semi-hilarious mixup when both Avitia and Roman shot against each other in the individual semi – as mentioned by Aida Roman here. Nosing around on the interweb, there seems to be a suggestion that she was Aida Roman’s personal coach – and there’s also an unsupported hint that she left the Mexican squad due to differences.

But it’s all good. Good luck. Lovely name, too. Sounds like how you’d describe a lullaby to its intended recipient.

In archery, korean, Olympics, training ,
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people shooting badly pt. 6 or so

May 1, 2013 — 1 Comment

An occasional series devoted to needlessly picking apart the technique of people posing with a bow for the benefit of a camera. 

936970_10151595463433281_1809654965_nHere we see the president of France, François Hollande, getting busy with a barebow for a lets-invest-in-sport photo op a couple of weeks before the Olympics last year.

Watch the full video here. It’s in French – don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. He meets the men’s London 2012 squad (in order of handshake: Roman Girouille, Thomas Faucheron, and Mr. Malevolent Stare himself, Gaël Prevost), and picks up an appropriately French Sebastien Flute bow. We miss the obligatory eight seconds of training famous people usually receive in these situations, but hey.

For a start, who the hell ever did some damage to the X ring in a suit? (A very good suit – Christian Dior, I am reliably informed). Arm/chest guard? Pah! You English speaking types, with your health and safety rules and your pasteurized cheese. Anyway…

‘Franny’, you are gripping the bow waaaaayyy too tightly. Head is cocked, should be straight. Rear elbow not bad – with some help – but the wrist is… oh dear. The bow is canted, and you’re leaning backwards (like I can talk). The plucked release…. ugh. You don’t play this instrument pizzicato, mon petit. Worst of all, the four-finger draw. Someone should have spotted that.  But the bow arm isn’t too bad. And I suppose he scored a rouge at two metres… [slow handclap].

By the way, it doesn’t matter. You’re adding a ‘carrot’ of tax incentives for athletes who succeed at the highest level in sport for their country? You can twang that bow like a cheap guitar, my friend.

Thanks to Madame La Baronne for this one as well. 

In not really archery, Olympics, photography , , , , ,
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Olympic Archery 1996: glory days

February 25, 2013 — 1 Comment

YouTube, eh? Where would lazy afternoons at work be without it? I came across this incredible 25 minute video of the 1996 Olympic archery competition. The ’96 Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia with the archery portion being held at Stone Mountain Park nearby; a spectacular, brooding backdrop. You can watch it all here:

I like a lot of things about this film. The Hollywood inserts. The split channel audio. The amazing displays of what would now be considered quite unorthodox techniques (especially releases). There are many highlights. The mixture of horror and bafflement on a Korean archer’s face at shooting a six. Some seriously 90s bow paint jobs. In the women’s semi, you can see the way Kim Kyung-Wook comes down, calms down, and recomposes herself to take out a ten and the match. The mental strength, the composure, boggle the mind. Essence of Korean archery, right there. In the gold medal match, she takes out the camera in the centre of the ten-ring twice.

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It starts getting really good with the men’s individual, though, and the arrival of Justin Huish. The US team (above), in the era before they let half-decent designers do the national team kits, have ended up looking slightly like a local baseball team in a heartwarming underdog movie. On the far right you can see coach Lloyd Brown, now coaching the UK squad since 2009. But Huish, with his wraparounds and his hint-of-Fonzie burns is a curious mix of slacker king and pumped-aggression. There’s something threatening about him.

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The semi-final match between his and the legend that is Michele Frangilli (looking, with that glove, and that draw-all-over-his-face, like an off-duty Bond villain’s henchman) is a doozy. Watch it all here. The crowd goes apeshit, and does it again for Huish’s semi. You can see him start to respond, more and more passion. When he walks out for the final with M Petersson you can see him just drinking it in.

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Playing to the crowd, confidence oozing. Writing the script. As the final winds on, he starts increasingly displaying a showy tic of holding his draw hand index finger to his neck. Look at me. It’s all me.

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The denoument is a delight. The sight of an athlete responding to an ecstatic crowd, using them as a spur, setting up that feedback loop of confidence is one of the delights of watching sport. That sense of collective drama and tension. Sadly, in archery, you only get those kind of crowds once every four years. (Have a quick look at last year’s damp and near empty World Cup finals in Tokyo last year for some contrast. It’s like a rained-out school fete.) The quality may be there, but the event is missing. I was never much of a football fan until someone took me to see Arsenal play in the late 1990s. Standing in the North Bank when the home team scored; the noise is just… narcotic. Like nothing else. As William Blake wrote: “Energy is pure delight.” I don’t think archery should be like football, but I want those collective feelings. I want that sense of narrative.

The film also contains a melancholic contrast to the earlier displays; in the women’s team competition, the sight of Cornelia Pfohl shooting, and then… ah, I’ll let you watch it. It’s better watched than written about (and watched till the end).

There’s a well-known post-story too. In 2001, Justin Huish was convicted of selling marijuana, and his archery career fell apart. You can read about that here. He was still shooting a few years ago. I wonder what he’s up to now. Do you know? Let me know.

In archery, Olympics, recurve, video
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London 2012 film teaser trailer

January 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

looking forward to it. so many memories.

In archery, Olympics, video
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archery on tv? must try harder

January 2, 2013 — 2 Comments

mm

A couple of days ago the BBC broadcast a one-off ‘Olympic special’ version of Superstars, that hoary old TV standby that has been airing here and there since the early 1970s. It featured a medium-stellar cast of British Olympic medal winners prepared to look daft on television, and one of the biggest stars of the summer Games: Mo Farah. On the 4th August last year I was in a packed pub in Knightsbridge in London screaming ‘GO ON!’ at a TV screen as Mo held them all off to take gold in the 10,000 metres – one of the highlights of the Games for me and many others. Barely four days later, he won the 5000 metres as well. Just glorious.

Anyway, someone thought it would be a good idea to have archery in the mix for Superstars. However, ‘a good idea’ was about as far as they went, in terms of execution. You can watch the segment here – it’s around ten minutes.

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It’s basically a straight up have-a-go-at-archery day, with Samick trainer bows (with the branding on the limbs covered up, naturally), Jazz arrows, full size target faces, and, egregiously, no distance specified. I mean, they don’t do that for the running events, do they? Imagine that: “Just sprint to about, ooh, there should do it.” It looks like about ten yards or so. The ‘oche’, the split screen, and the black cyclorama unfortunately gave proceedings just a hint of the much missed Bullseye. Speaking of ‘bullseye’, the commentator pulls at least one of them out of the bag [smacks wrist]. Still, at least no-one mentions Robin Ho… oh, Iwan Thomas. You did.

Given how seriously pisspoor a bunch of top Olympic athletes are at barebow shooting, I suspect none of them had more than half an hour’s training (as the commentary pretty much admits). If you’ve completed a archery beginners’ course, take comfort in the fact that you can most likely thrash an Olympic gold medallist at at least one sport.

Let’s have a look at a couple of people’s technique:

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Here we see Nicola Adams (gold, boxing (flyweight)). Stance looks good, head a bit tilted though, and her bow arm needs to be straighter…

mo farah

Mo Farah (gold, 5k and 10k). Bow arm looks better, but your rear elbow is too high, Mo, and your draw hand is crooked (like I can talk)… 

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Michael Jamieson (silver, 200m breaststroke). Much better. Head straight, mostly in line, but a four finger draw? Dear me. Still, he won, if you’re interested. 

As for the bog-standard vapid commentary and talking-head links: least said the better. Although this is, of course, endemic to modern TV. Nothing can possibly be allowed to happen without cutting away to a couple of people who barely know anything more about the subject than you do filling in thirty seconds. What do you reckon? Well, Gabby… (or Gary, or Hazel, or John…)

I’m not expecting miracles from an entertainment programme, and I appreciate the limitations of time, but some of the other sports weren’t treated quite so casually. For the swimming round, they got (Beijing gold medallist) Rebecca Adlington in to train the competitors. (Did no one have Alison Williamson’s phone number?) The sprint races were timed and started professionally. They got Paul Dickenson in to do the commentary, just like a real major championships.

Archery? “Oh, just do whatever.” Must try harder.

 

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The long hard road to Rio

December 19, 2012 — Leave a comment

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UK elite archery has its UK Sport grant cut from £4.4m to £3.1m ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics after it failed to deliver a medal at London 2012 – a 29.5% decrease. This move was widely anticipated after archery failed to meet the targets (*ahem*) set for it by the Olympic funding commitee. (I wrote about the consequences of the Olympic failure earlier this year.)

The Paralympic portion of the funding is going to remain almost exactly the same. Team GB Paralympic archers, of course, took home one gold and one silver this year.

This news comes only days after the news of an 133% increase in funding for archery from Sport England, the (different) government body in charge of grassroots funding of sport, which has been widely hailed as great news.

To be honest, archery hasn’t done too badly compared to basketball, table tennis, basketball and volleyball, all of whom had their Olympic funding withdrawn:

“Some of the sports held up as the biggest crowd-pleasers and legacy drivers during the London Olympics have had their funding cut altogether ahead of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. Table tennis, wrestling, handball, basketball and indoor volleyball have had their financial support withdrawn by UK Sport, while beach volleyball will receive just £400,000 over four years to fund the women’s team.

The elite-sport funding agency was forced to defend the tough decisions on minority sports, made under its “no-compromise formula” that targets public money only at genuine medal hopes, at a time when the Olympic legacy is under scrutiny.

“I think people understand that when you host a home Olympics you have to put teams out in every single sport. Bizarre though it sounds to say it now, the rationale is to drive ticket sales,” said the sports minister Hugh Robertson. “When people look at it, they know that is done on a performance basis. There is not a lot of point at this level, funding teams that are not going to qualify for the Olympics.”

source: The Guardian

Alison Williamson has responded here.

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korean women & kimchi

November 27, 2012 — Leave a comment

Someone sent me this little nugget about kimchi and archery from an A-Z article in the Observer Food Monthly in September, which made me interested, partly because it involves food:

K is for… Kimchi. Cabbage, radish and cucumber smeared in hot pepper paste became the relished relish for foodies as it found its way into burgers, pulled pork buns and hot dogs. The fermented Korean pickled vegetable dish may also be a reason for the women of the Korean archery team at London 2012 winning gold again; years of plying leaves with paste is thought to increase dexterous sensitivity.

Needless to say, the reason the Korean women win every time has more to do with a vast youth base, standardised coaching, clear career paths, professional leagues, sponsorship, staggering expectations, famous role models, and brutal 1000-arrows-a-day training regimes… but hey. It’s a good story, I suppose. I was curious as to the ‘dexterous sensitivity’ bit though, so I emailed the author of the article (@thomasblythe) and eventually tracked it down to a Reuters piece during the Olympics, which also claimed that the use of metal chopsticks (unique amongst South-East Asian nations) could be behind it all. A bit of further searching led me to a article suggesting:

Correct handling of metal chopsticks is said to involve the simultaneous use of 30 joints and 50 muscles in the fingers, and many of Korea’s national successes have been attributed to the mastering of such complex movements and feats of hand-eye coordination. Those achievements include consistent overwhelming victory in the global WorldSkills Competition (such as at the recent 2009 round in Calgary), outstanding performance in high-precision sports such as archery and golf, groundbreaking achievements in the field of stem cell manipulation, and world-beating growth in precision-intensive industries such as semiconductor production and specialist shipbuilding (e.g. airtight natural gas tankers). Frequent use of the hands stimulates the parietal lobe of the brain, helping develop neurological circuits in young children and preventing dementia among old people.

Source: koreabrand.com

…none of which appears to be backed up by any of that pesky scientific evidence, unfortunately.

Still, the Korean national dish appears to be pretty healthy stuff, with its vitamins and lactobacilli. I’ve had some a few times at BiBimBap in Soho in London, where it seems to be averagely ferocious. I also like the idea of a foodstuff which needs its own special little fridge.

While the link between making kimchi and archery seems a bit speculative, while I was nosing about the web looking for recipes I came across this decidedly Californian website with a staggeringly long ‘Ultimate Kimchi’ recipe after their expat Korean GrandMaster, which noted:

“Its interesting to watch Grandmaster at times like these, too. If someone speaks to her, she may nod, or smile, or she may not react all — but her concentration never wavers. She is completely absorbed in what she is doing. She is also completely aware of everything going on around her — who is saying what, who is doing what, and where they are — but she has her attention focused on one thing — and that concentration makes a big difference in her kimchi.”

You could replace the word ‘kimchi’ with ‘archery’ there and be on the way to shooting pretty well. Actually, you could replace ‘kimchi’ with a whole bunch of great things. Maybe there’s something in this after all.

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“Facebook / Twitter? I turned it all off. “

September 10, 2012
Particularly interesting interview with Larry Godfrey from a local Bristolian website. Bold mine.

How did you manage to work and train in the lead up to the Olympics?

“After the Beijing Olympics I came back to work full-time and was then granted part-time status for three years. This meant I worked 20 hrs a week with flexible hours which allowed me to attend training and competitions. This is great support to get from your employer.”

What is it like training and holding down a job?

“This was my third Olympics so I am used to the working/training/competing cycle. I am back working full-time again now so today, for example, I will work until 4pm and then train at the archery club.”

Any similarities between archery & your day job?

“Definitely with the set up and tuning of my equipment I don’t settle for any small margins – I want perfection. I have suggested improvements that other archers have made to the set up and tuning of their equipment and they have instantly shot better. I work to margins of 1,000ths of inches in work so to me it comes naturally to apply this mindset to my archery.

“I strive for perfection in the way I shoot which is what I try to do in my day job – constantly trying to improve. We never settle down and just do work here which is how I am when I stand up to shoot arrows I am always looking for that next enhancement and how to improve on my last shot. So I think it is very similar and my work compliments my archery and my archery compliments my work.”

What support did you get from work colleagues in the run up to and during the Olympics?

“I’ve worked with the same great bunch of people for a long time. They’ve been with me through the three games now so there is a lot of banter but they do support me in my archery and with the job when I am away training or at competitions.

“I also received an email from our CEO John Rishton wishing me luck which was nice and at previous Games I received similar support from Sir John Rose. It’s great to know that people within the company are backing you and wishing you well.”

Did you receive support via Facebook/Twitter?

“I turned it all off. There was a lot of discussion about using social media before and during the Olympics. A few athletes have come out and blamed Facebook/Twitter for costing them their medals as they became obsessed and couldn’t ignore hurtful comments but I’m glad I made the decision to switch it off until after my games were finished. Afterwards I saw all the comments from friends and family and people I don’t even know who said that I inspired them to take up archery or to pick up their bow again or to commit to training. This included lots of children who are very excited about archery which is great for the future of the sport.”

What was it like competing in a ‘home’ Games?

“The home crowd made it the best arena I have ever shot in – everyone was firmly behind me. There were some surreal moments – walking out from the practice range to get to my match I had a line of troops either side all clapping me which was a fantastic experience. At my third match there was a group in the crowd all wearing masks of my face and I don’t know who they were or where they got the masks from but it was fun to see. I would have liked to have gone through a couple of more rounds just for the benefit of the crowd who were really enjoying the events.

“A lot of the Olympic helpers were friends and fellow archers from around the country. Being surrounded by familiar, friendly faces kept it low key, less hyped up and it being my third Olympics I had more of an idea what to expect. I felt fairly relaxed – the only nerves I had were just a bit of apprehension which you get before competing at any event.”

You were knocked out of the last 16 by one shot at the target – was that difficult to take?

“I went out in the last 16 and looking at the scores I finished 9th. I’ve done all the research and looked at the stats throughout the competition for myself and the four finalists and I was shooting better than the bronze and silver medallists – in fact I was shooting at the same level as the gold medallist. The way the competition is set up and the brutal single arrow decision meant I went out when I did but I was shooting at medal level. I’ve gone over and over all the data and I’ve put it down to bad luck.

“I was planning to pull out a Personal Best when it mattered most and I achieved just that I was confident and I knew I was good enough to win a medal – it just didn’t work within the setup of the competition. To be ranked 4th highest in the world behind the three Korean archers was a great achievement but unfortunately they don’t give out any medals for that.

“My Olympic experiences to date have been ones of bad luck I think. I came 4th in Athens when one arrow was blown by the wind in the semi-finals, otherwise that would have been a medal. I shot well in Beijing but my opponent in the 1st round shot fantastically and went on to win a bronze medal. In London I was shooting well but was unlucky on that last arrow. My opponent had a bunch of line calls which were in, I had a load that were deemed out and then on the last arrow I was hanging a little bit to the right so I aimed a little bit more to the left to give the arrow a chance to get in but still got buffeted by the wind. I looked at my opponent who adjusted and went right and he got a 10.

“Sport comes down to these fine margins. My shot could easily have hit the ten ring – and his could easily have hit the nine ring. That target is 70 metres away and the ten ring is the size of a grapefruit. I did everything I could possibly have done. But of course I’m disappointed I didn’t get a medal.”

It’s hard not to agree with his assessment that he was just unlucky in London. The wind whipped away a lot of people’s hopes. There is, of course, a random element to almost every sport, but few seem quite as capricious as the damnable wind; the djinn ready to strike and destroy a lifetime’s ambitions.
I particularly liked the thing about turning off Facebook and Twitter, something I do from time to time, and some people consider to be an excellent, even essential thing to do. Larry’s attitude towards his Olympic experiences is the life lesson that needs to be shown rather than taught – you do all you can, you give your best, and when you get knocked back you try again. The best you can give is enough. The process is the reward. His attitudes towards life and sport should be broadcast more widely than an interview in the local paper.
Of course, Larry failing to make the last 8 sealed the perception that the Team GB archers had failed, particularly after the avalanche of British gold immediately following conclusion of the archery. The success of the Paralympic squad added weight to both sides of the balance sheet. All that money (the biggest percentage rise in funding for any Team GB Olympic sport after Beijing) and home advantage, and not even a sniff of a medal.
I’m not criticising the individual perfomances – and Amy Oliver particularly punched above her weight – but there was definitely a sense of underperformance which no talk of wind and luck seemed to abate. No one was really expecting any of them to beat the Koreans, but if his arrow had landed in the ten, and he had gone deeper – who knows. Even a last eight finish would have gone some way towards redemption. The fine margins he talks about apply to the governing body and the Performance Unit too. Funding. Money. That single X10 arrow landing a couple of inches away from its intended destination may cause changes that will ripple down UK archery for the next Olympic cycle and beyond.
In Olympics, photo, regular, target , , ,
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terry

August 16, 2012

Another one I found in the archives: Simon Terry shooting at Lords a couple of weeks ago. The light got delightful as the afternoon drew on and the shadows got longer. The noise of the flag eyelets rattling gently in the wind still stays with me. Gently exotic.

I was pleased with my seats for the sessions, generally speaking – although the difference between the £90 tickets and the £30 tickets were relatively minimal. Really easy to see the archers, although you had to crane your neck a bit to the left to see the giant screen. I can still remember it. Actually, I’m still glowing with pride that I was there. What a year.

In Olympics, photo, recurve , , ,
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double Roman

August 14, 2012

Aida Roman.

Source: Loki Is My Ruler

In archery, Olympics, photo, recurve ,
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