Tag Archives: Indoor World Cup

Letter from Marrakesh

30 November, 2016

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Have you ever wondered what it’s like to go and shoot in an indoor World Cup? This week a guest post from Rebekah Tipping, who did just that in Marrakesh at the weekend. She did pretty damn well, too.

Full result and news from Marrakesh are here.
You can follow Rebekah on Twitter here.

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The idea of going to a World Cup leg in another country has always seemed to be a bit of an unrealistic dream for me. I went to Telford in 2014 and ranked somewhere in the mid 30s, too low even to make the cut for the head-to-heads. So when Tom (Hall) and Emma (Davis) suggested going to Marrakech to me one day in late August, and making a bit of a trip out of it, I didn’t take the idea that seriously. That was until they mentioned that I’d make the cut with the scores I was shooting last indoor season. This got me thinking: what if I did go? I had never been very good at FITA 18 shooting, those three spots are just so small, and I’d never really put in a lot of time in them since most university competitions are shot at Portsmouth faces, but I was prepared to put the work in and feel more confident on them.

When we moved back indoors for the season at the end of September, I decided that I was going to do it. I’d spend the next three months shooting on the FITA 18 faces and do my best in Marrakech. We booked our flights together and got an AirBnB between seven of us to keep the cost low. Things actually worked out pretty well since being a sports scholar at the University of Birmingham meant I was able to use the money granted to me by the high performance centre to fund the entire trip. Then all there was left to do was to train!

We have four training sessions a week in our university club, and I shoot once a week in my flat at a short distance to keep my strength up between training, along with two strength and conditioning sessions twice a week that have proved themselves incredibly valuable in the past few months. In total, between planning on going to Marrakesh and shooting my first arrow of the competition, I think I’d probably had around 160 hours of training, enough to increase my average score from 520 to 560.

When we arrived in Morocco, it was a very strange experience. Our taxi driver didn’t speak a word of English, and I found myself searching into the depths of my memory for some GCSE French. We arrived at our mansion of an AirBnB and got settled in pretty quickly, discussing who would be staying where and planning for the next day.

Before heading to the official practice on the Friday afternoon, we took a look around the souks, the markets that cover a huge area of the city. We got quite lost on this adventure, but managed to make our way back to the venue in time for the opening ceremony and official practice. The practice itself was also a strange affair. We didn’t know that the venue was actually a tent erected in a plaza in the middle of the city. This made it quite challenging, in the sense that we now had weather to contend with over the course of the evening. It wasn’t too difficult though, just quite cold, especially once the lady recurves had finished our hour and a half of practice and we were waiting around for the gents to finish their shooting.

It was mild weather in comparison to the storm that rolled in the next afternoon, that delayed the gent recurves’ second half for well over an hour. I’d like to say at this point we were used to flooding though, as when we woke up in the morning of the qualification round, the bottom floor of our house had flooded, leaving the kitchen and Bryony Pitman’s room under a sheet of water!

DIARY: Saturday, 8:30am – ranking round

Just about to start my first ever international ranking round. Feeling a bit nervous but I think it’s mostly excitement. I really want to perform to my best, so I always get this kind of feeling before a shoot. The hall is busy, full of people feeling the same way, the first detail lined up on the waiting line, bows at the ready, looking forward to showing the world what they’ve got. I’ve warmed up, checked my bow, and looked over my goals and notes in my book. I’m ready. The signal sounds, I’m second detail so I’m going to think about my shot sequence for the next two minutes and get ready to put the past three months of training into action.

I ranked 7th of 31 women with a score of 560

Sunday, 9:45am – 1/32 match versus Aude Pipari (FRA) – won 6:2

I was really happy with how yesterday went, and I’m still in a bit of shock that I shot a PB in my first international competition. But at the same time, when I think about all the hours of training that went into preparing for this competition, I really shouldn’t be surprised!

We have 45 minutes until practice for the 1/8th. I’m seeded against an archer that shot 528 against my 560, but that doesn’t mean much, maybe she had a bad day and is capable of much more. I have this mindset that when it comes to head-to-heads, anyone can punch above their weight, so never take it for granted that you’ll get through. You need to shoot to the same standard in a 1/8th or a 1/16th as you would in a gold medal match, because if you don’t, you’ll never see a gold medal match!

Every time I went to shoot an arrow yesterday in the qualification round, I had this voice in the back of my head saying “No timid shots, be confident!” And I woke up this morning to a message from my coach telling me to be confident today. So that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to go out there confident in my process and shoot to the best of my ability.


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Sunday, 11:45am – 1/16 match v Pia Lionetti (ITA) – lost 7:3

That match could most definitely be described as challenging. I was shooting against two time Olympian Pia Lionetti and was quite slow to get started. I was certainly right about her shooting below her ability in the qualification after seeing her shoot in the head to heads! We had two ends of practice then straight into the match.I opened with a 27 against her 29. I knew I needed to get myself together and get in control of my shot, so I really concentrated on getting my shots out strong, and pulled out two 29s in a row to match her, but she was not letting up. I had my team mates, and housemates for the weekend, (Tom, Emma, Conor, Sarah, Bryony and Patrick) over to support me now, as their matches had finished after three ends. I feel more confident with my friends behind me, and I think that helped me shoot a 29 to match yet another 29 from her.

The score was 5:3 to her, and I shot a ten and a nine in my first two arrows in that final end. I didn’t look at her target because I knew that would just be putting too much pressure on myself, it didn’t matter what she shot, I wanted to shoot the best shot I could. I took a moment to refocus. I followed my shot process, and made sure to concentrate on the parts of my technique that let me down and still require conscious corrections. Unfortunately my shaking hands maybe not have been under my complete control, and a less than optimal release resulted in a seven on the left hand side. But I’m not upset about it, there is absolutely no point being upset when she shot fantastically and I put up a damn good fight. We both shot at a standard above that of our qualification scores, but put simply, Lionetti shot better.My main goal for this competition was to have a performance that I was proud of, and I have definitely achieved that goal! Now to support my team mates in their matches.

 

Sunday, 3:30pm – recurve finals matches

My fellow GB archer, Sarah Bettles, who I’ve come up against in head-to-heads numerous times over the national series events this past outdoor season, (we seem to take turns beating each other) got through her 1/8th match easily and found herself in the 1/4 finals against Mexican Olympic archer Gabriela Bayardo. She was very nervous going into the match and asked me to be her coach. I was really quite touched at this, and jumped at the opportunity! Gabriela was shooting very well in practice and Sarah seemed intimidated. She started taking more time on the line and finding her focus before taking her first shot. I think this really helped her, as she opened with a 30 against Gabriela’s 27.

I could actually see Sarah growing more confident as the match progressed, our team mates could testify to this, and I felt so proud to be a part of her match, even though I had been knocked out of the competition already. With some coaching advice from Patrick Huston, who told me about the power of a positive attitude and body language when coaching, I felt more confident in being able to keep Sarah calm and shooting her best. Her next match, the semi-final, was against our fellow team mate (and housemate!) Bryony Pitman.

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The semi-final match was another incredibly close one, with Sarah starting strong and Bryony finishing up just slightly stronger. It was a sad situation for team mates to be against each other, but at least both archers were guaranteed a medal match from it. They went to a shoot off and Bryony shot a beautiful ten to take the spot in the gold medal match, leaving Sarah to fight for bronze against Estonian archer Reena Parnat. Sarah was still shooting fabulously, but it’s hard to compete against such high quality scores from your opponent. We were all behind her though, and she took her fourth place finish happily, as anyone would at their first international World Cup event!

 

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Sunday, 6:00pm – gold medal matches

Bryony’s gold medal match was another tense affair. She was shooting against Mexican archer Aida Roman, who I was on the same target as during the qualification round. To say I was starstruck at this was an understatement, I asked her for her autograph on my target face and got a photo with her after the qualification. Bryony, and coach Patrick, stepped up to the gold medal match with such confidence, it was incredibly inspiring to watch. She came out with guns blazing against Aida, but had a slight blip in the middle and lost a set. Patrick had goaded the British contingent into singing the well-known tune “Twinkle twinkle GBR, Bryony Pitman, you’re a star” and I honestly couldn’t believe the effect it had on her! She started busting out the tens like there was no tomorrow, and stormed her way to that first place finish.
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Our final meal in Morocco consisted of an entire kilogram of meat. All of this cost about £4.10 each.

Monday, 20:00 – heading home

The team atmosphere in Marrakech was incredible, even though we were just a band of mismatched archers from different clubs who didn’t necessarily know each other very well before this weekend, and it was such a fantastic experience for my first international competition. I do believe the game of sardines, which is a version of hide and seek where one person hides and as each other person finds them they join in hiding until only one person is left searching, in the pitch dark in our AirBnB (which was more like a mansion) really helped the team bonding experience, and everyone was very supportive to each and every other archer throughout the whole competition. A particular acknowledgement must go to Tom Hall, who sprinted 2.5km across Marrakech to retrieve Emma’s forgotten sight and made it back before practice began at 8:30am.

 

The opportunity to watch the world’s top archers do their thing was an amazing experience. I was standing ten metres from Brady Ellison when he shot the last arrow of his world record and, at a risk of overusing the word, I couldn’t help but feel inspired by it and happy for him when he was so overjoyed at shooting the record. I’ve had one of the best weekends of archery in the five years since I took up the sport as a first year university student in Aberdeen, but I can’t wait to get back to shooting my bow! As is the standard with archery, there is always something new to try and something improve with technique, or equipment, and I can’t wait to get stuck back into training and putting some new ideas into effect.

And finally, to the frequently asked question of how many archers can fit in one top bunk to hide from an Olympian? Six. The answer is six.

Thanks Rebekah!

2014 European Archery Festival – photo diary

27 January, 2014

 

2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

SATURDAY 25th JANUARY

Telford. Christ.

This, the largest indoor archery event ever held in the UK is being held in Telford. Of all places. The four stages of the archery indoor World Cup are held (in order) in Shanghai, Marrakech, Telford, and Las Vegas. One of these things is not like the other, as even a slightly bemused BBC Midlands crew points out on the Friday night. It reminds me of the “London. Paris. Peckham.” painted on the side of DelBoy’s van. Telford International Centre is a huge shed dumped beside an A-road and used for all the events that matter; Ultimate Dubs, Scale Model World, and the snooker in November. Now it’s being used for something important; and over 900 archers from 40 countries have turned out.

Qualifying. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Qualifying. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

By the time I reach the venue, we are already in the fourth qualification stage of four: sixty arrows, recurve and compound, men and women, recurve and junior – although a couple of brave souls are shooting barebow, and one guy is shooting a horsebow with wooden arrows. Whatta man. The top 32 in each category go through to the eliminations. This tournament is completely open; you are free to turn up and make a score that challenges the greats, if you can. You can almost smell the intense concentration required, as well as the dejection from less vintage performances.

Qualifying at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Qualifying at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Qualification 'D'. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Qualification ‘D’. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

In the bleak midwinter. Qualifying at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

In the bleak midwinter. Qualifying at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Bryony Pitman. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Bryony Pitman. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Alan Wills warming up. Qualification at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Alan Wills warming up. Qualification at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

I’ve been trying, but I can’t think of another sport, anywhere, where you can just pitch up as a rank amateur and get to perform literally next to the world’s number one, an Olympic medallist, or a world record holder. All these things happened in Telford. You can run in the same city marathon as Haile Gebrselassie, but they don’t let you start next to him. Many other sports have open competitions, but the top people usually get a bye through. Here, you get to play with the best in the world, straight out. Disabled archers on the same field as everyone else. There’s something magical there. I wander the forests of carbon with my camera, finding joy and disappointment in equal measure.

Becky Martin. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Becky Martin. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Qualification 'D'. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Qualification ‘D’. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Crystal Gauvin at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Crystal Gauvin at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Vanessa Elzinga and Jamie Van Natta. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Vanessa Elzinga and Jamie Van Natta. 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Rick & Stef. Qualification 'D' at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Rick & Stef. Qualification ‘D’ at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Reo Wilde & Adam Ravenscroft at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Reo Wilde & Adam Ravenscroft at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

 Qualification 'D' at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Qualification ‘D’ at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Eliska.  Qualification 'D' at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Eliska. Qualification ‘D’ at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Eliska Starostova, a friend now on the Czech national team is sponsored as an archer by her ‘other’ club Fujian White Crane Kung-Fu. Despite the heroic and (usually) positive sporting associations the general public have with archery, many traditions think of it more as a martial art; a discipline. Kung-fu and archery. It’s a good match-up. Self-discipline. Inner strength. Eliska beat one Naomi Folkard to win an indoor tournament last year. I watch the screens nervously as qualification wraps up while her name hovers around the cut line. Frowning with concentration, she ends up qualifying 26th in women’s recurve. Safety. The work has paid off. The gilded names go on, the vast amateur field get another shot at a second-chance tournament at some ungodly hour the next morning.

Chang Hye-Jin. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Chang Hye-Jin. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

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In the women’s recurve, a juggernaut arrived last night. Team LH from Korea; five archers, in identical uniforms at all times, no English, terrifyingly good. LH are full-time professionals, sponsored by the state housing company. They took five of the top six spots in qualification, out of ninety-eight top women archers from all over the world. It’s a bit like Real Madrid suddenly pitching up in League 2. The utter dominance of Korea in recurve archery, reinforced in spades over the last couple of years, has become a cornerstone of the international sport. As someone says to me, “I’m just glad they didn’t enter the men’s team. Or their compounders. Because we’d all have been f****ed.”

Sjef Van Den Berg. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Sjef Van Den Berg. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

As the head to head competition starts, the focus narrows, and the thousand-yard-stares come out. With no wind or rain and the short distance involved, the indoor scores at this level are so high, that the winner or loser can be decided on basically “who blinks first.” Who is the first to shoot a nine rather than a ten. If your opponent can and does score thirty for a three-arrow end, you must be able to do the same. The set system allows for limited opportunities for catching up an error, but the fact remains that international archery competitions are brutal. Brutal on the nerves, brutal on the psyche. Your odds of making the final table are tiny. Poker fields. Over the PA, the results of matches are announced, the fallen are a who’s-who of big names. The world champions. The ones who get featured in the programme. (And Eliska, unfortunately, hammered by a German archer in the 1/16). In barely more than ten minutes, all that work is over.

Tatiana Segina. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Tatiana Segina. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Aida Roman using 'video assist'.  Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Aida Roman using ‘video assist’. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Aida Roman and her coach watch each end back on video immediately after she finishes shooting it. She ends up beating her former coach, Song I Woo, who is one of the few archers on the line who looks like they are enjoying themselves.

Songi Woo. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Thomas Faucheron. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Thomas Faucheron. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

I watch the quarter-final between Brady Ellison and Thomas Faucheron of France from a prime seat, a slow, ferocious battle. Brady is the huge star here. He has an immense presence on the line, slow, immensely relaxed. This Olympic medallist self-describes on social media as ‘a country boy who just likes to shoot his bow’. He spends most of the time when not shooting besieged by autograph-hunters.

Brady Ellison. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Brady Ellison. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Brady Ellison. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Brady Ellison. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Brady Ellison. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Brady Ellison. Recurve shootdown at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Brady’s shots seem so strong, so still, so relaxed, that I wonder how he can be beaten. Faucheron holds and holds and holds (usually a road to disaster) yet somehow still manages to pull out the tens. It comes down to a one-arrow shootoff. If the preceding competitive segments were brutal, this is an even nastier weapon. Faucheron wins it, by millimetres. Brady sighs just a little and adjusts his cap, then congratulates him. Next day will be painless.

SUNDAY 26th JANUARY

Chris Wells is the communications director for the EAF. Why Telford, Chris? “Because we’ve used the area before, we saw real potential in the venue, there’s good transport links, hotels on site, plus we got excellent feedback from the archers who’ve been here before (the Back to Back tournament).” All excellent reasons. But unfortunately, it’s still Telford.

Great God, this is an awful place. One of the more famous 1960s new towns, it was created by municipal parthenogenesis, when someone decided to legitimise the existence of a bunch of Shropshire towns and villages by birthing a shopping centre in the middle and uniting them all in joyful retail. A few miles to the south is the bucolic Ironbridge, cradle of the Industrial Revolution and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But here is just the urtext inflorescence of Crap Britain, a vaporous hell of Wetherspoons and Costa, an ring-road Erewhon, a post-war concrete conurban fantasy guiding all to worship at the crumbling temple complex in the middle – which now has an Asda. Deserted on a Saturday night at 9pm, you can’t get from the “town centre” to the International Centre on the pavement – they’ve ripped it out and haven’t put anything down. You have to struggle through the muddy verges or take your chances on the A-road. Everyone in local hotels is turning up with muddy shoes, including me. Telford: the town that makes Slough look like Florence. Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, California, that: “The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn’t any there there.” When you get to Telford, there wasn’t anything there in the first place, but someone replaced it with f**k all anyway. Perhaps if you hurtle round the ring road fast enough you can achieve escape velocity from this Travelodge of a city.

Steve Anderson on the Hoyt stand at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Steve Anderson on the Hoyt stand at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Steve Anderson on the Hoyt stand at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Steve Anderson on the Hoyt stand at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

The other half of this festival is devoted to trade, held in the hall next door. All the big archery manufacturers and many of the British retailers have taken a stall here. Most things are pretty familiar, so I decide to look for things which are new(ish).

Fivics risers at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Fivics risers at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

New Fivics risers in pretty colours. Korean glamour.

Win & Win compound bows at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Win & Win compound bows at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Win & Win have started producing compound bows, with the usual attention to simplicity and excellence coupled with joyfully peculiar translations.

Shibuya stabs at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Shibuya stabs at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Shibuya stabs in awesome bright colours.

Aurel Archery shafts at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Aurel Archery shafts at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

I spend a good deal of time talking to René Velarde Rast (above) of Aurel Archery, based in Germany, a man manufacturing some beautiful quality carbon arrows. He is gradually working on a business model based on excellent quality, personal service, and strong relationships with pro shops. Whether he can seriously challenge the Easton machine perhaps depends on long-entrenched attitudes changing; the product is obviously excellent. He is focussing entirely on target archery; no broadheads and skull penetration figures here. I would love to get a bunch of his shafts and piles down to my club; we are currently working collectively on putting together tricky components like bowstrings ourselves, and arrows are one of the more difficult elements of archery to get right (in London this is not helped by a complete lack of archery shops). Seizing control of the means of production, and reducing the import duty on American arrows would help. Rene is also producing aluminium and, uniquely, wood laminate shafts for traditional archers (below). Good show.

Aurel Archery - wood laminate shafts at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Aurel Archery – wood laminate shafts at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

I meet up with some of the other London archers and we rattle around the place, waiting for the denouement. I meet Patrick, the hazy genius behind Uukha. I watch a BBC ‘Road To Rio’ TV crew desperately try, with Songi Woo’s help, to pull some quotes out of the Sphinx-like Koreans. After the junior finals have been completed, the main hall is closed off and turned round. We have been promised a special show for the big finale. Lights. Smoke. A show producer from Vegas has been pulled in. Broadcast engineers. The compound archers ‘headline’ this show above the recurvers, in a reversal of the usual order of events. I ask why. The focus is apparently being put on ‘on-the-spot-accuracy’, with tension and cameras and the like, and the inherently more accurate bow is taking centre stage – it should be noted that the main sponsors are also quite compound-oriented, too. They were hoping for more national BBC coverage, but it’s a difficult sell without some Brits in the final.

Finals warm-up at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Finals warm-up at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

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The show is indeed a show, designed for the room more than the TV. Aida Roman is first up in the bronze medal match, and she’s amazing. There’s a steely look to her shooting. A more ruthless competitor. If I’ve watched the Olympic individual climax a thousand times… There is no mistake here. She wins looking like a rock star. (If you are really bored, you can watch the feed and see me scurry out to take the picture below.)

Aida Roman: rock star. Finals 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Aida Roman: rock star. Finals 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

After that, the Korean women put on a masterclass in form for the final, which goes to two shoot-offs. It’s not so much that they look effortless; it’s more that the technique is so ingrained that it looks more natural. It’s learned, like everyone else. It’s just better. The scores, as I check them later, would easily challenge the recurve men. Perhaps the missing media link is just that; remove men’s and women’s classes: totally open competition. I wonder if that’s an idea whose time has come.

Team LH, finals of the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Team LH, finals of the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Kim Yu Mi at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Kim Yu Mi at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

Levi Morgan v Paul Tedford at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Levi Morgan v Paul Tedford at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

TRU Ball sign at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

TRU Ball sign at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

All-American chisel-jawed superman Levi Morgan takes the bronze in men’s compound, and when asked how, says he ‘prayed real hard’. It’s about this time I notice the slogan in very small letters underneath the headline sponsor’s logo plastered everywhere. The joys of international archery; the frankly strange cultural clashes, the variety of people and stories united in a common goal. The festival has worked. The big show has come off. It wasn’t perfect, and there’s a way to go, but everything appears to be going in exactly the right direction. It was an event. Where does it go from here?

Erika Jones at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

Erika Jones at the 2014 European Archery Festival. © 2014 The Infinite Curve

 

All pictures by me (except the one of Aida Roman post-release by Dean Alberga). All rights reserved. If you want to use them, ask me nicely. 

Special thanks to Chris Wells. Was great to meet @StratfordArcher, @archeryashe, @martin_evans and the like. Cheers. 

Stay tuned for an extensive interview with Patrick Huston, hope to bring you that tomorrow.  

John.