The Olympic dream is over

Yes it's true. The Olympic dream is over. After a couple of years I have decided that it's going to require more effort than I can afford to put in. I am still doing archery but now on "the dark side" and predominantly and most importantly for fun! You can follow my compound bow exploits on my new blog http://compoundunlimited.blogspot.com/

Thanks for following my progress thus far, but I will not be updating this blog any further. Good luck for 2009!

£3.95bn to host games

A couple of months ago The Daily Telegraph reported that the London Olympics are now expected to cost around £3.95bn. Wow! If I had just 0.001% of that I could almost guarantee my place in the archery squad by hiring the best coaches and training full time. Hmmm. Any offers?

2007 Short Metric league

On 30^th September I went to Greenwood Osterley to compete in the last short metric league shoot of the year. Technically it was the final day of my membership to the club and I wanted to go along and show my support. There was also the prospect of getting one of their old straw bosses for the back garden.

Greenwood has already won the league so this was a final shoot to decide the 2^nd place - we were just shooting for fun really. Still it’s good to compete and get some extra practice.

I scored 550 - an ok score, but I felt I could do better.

The good news is that the club were kind enough to let me have an old boss, and I brought it home tied to the roofbars of the trusty Astra. Mind you it’s sitting propped up against the house wall with a plastic sheet over it at the moment, until I decide where and how to put it up.

On the morning of 6^th October I went to Quicks and bought some serving material and serving tool. I decided to have a go a putting a new centre-serving on my bowstring. The original was the wrong size and I was not getting a very good release of my arrows. A serving is a twine-like material that wraps around the bowstring, to produce a loop at both ends, and a section in the middle that you hold when pulling back the string.

Ever since the scouts I have been a big fan of knot-tying so I thought I would have a go, first by practicing on an old shoelace. And then doing it for real

Things went pretty well, and what’s more England beat Australia in the rugby world cup quarter final. Fantastic!

Other news: I’ve started a Facebook group called “Get Nick to the Olympics” to which I have added some photos. Please show your support by joining the group here.

Maintaining my indoor handicap

A couple of Mondays ago was the second of our indoor practice rounds. Like last time, this was a Portsmouth round where I was hoping to beat my score from the previous week. Things started well with 3 arrows in the ten-ring for my sighting shots, but by the end I had made too many errors and finished on a score of 526. I need to be scoring at least 542 in order to maintain my indoor handicap of 37. Here’s hoping for better things next time.

Pope Young

If I said lets shoot a Pope Young, you might not know what I meant. Neither did I when someone said it to me. It’s actually the name of an archery round. This round differs from a normal round in target archery in that there are 6 targets numbered 1 through 6 accordingly and 6 shooting positions arranged in an arc, again numbered from 1 through 6.

Starting at position 1 you get 45 seconds in total (or a minute in our case as the field captain was feeling generous) to shoot one arrow at each of the targets in turn before scoring, retrieving arrows and moving to the next shooting position to do it again. It’s fast and furious with hardly any time to load then shoot the arrow so using a clicker and any sight adjustment was out of the question.

It was great fun and I hope to do it again soon. I imagine it’s similar to a field shoot in that you have to estimate the distance and aim at a distant twig or cloud to get it right. I think I’m going to look into doing a field shoot.

What no archery

A combination of family commitments, bad weather and a sprained foot has kept me away from the archery field. I have to say that my motivation has dwindled slightly as well. There has been a lot of stuff to do around the house recently and that has had to take priority. It’s amazing to think that there are full time athletes out there. How do they get other stuff done? We’ve still got boxes to unpack and we’ve been in our new house for six months now. I have got some important things done though, like making a gallon of pear wine and got some logs for the winter.
As far as the archery goes I amazed myself by coming second in the Nonsuch club champs despite only shooting about 3 dozen arrows in practise the day before. Having said that there was a gap of about 200 points between me and first place, and the line-up did not include a couple of the top archers. My philosophy is that you have to be in it to win it and I am pleased with my second place. A score of 938 is a personal best for the FITA round (although still some 127 points shy of a Bowman classification).
Still some would say it’s the taking part that counts, and I am applying this to the competition I took part in at Woking last Sunday. I shot really badly (even worse that the Herts County Champs earlier in the year). I should be nailing a Hereford round now but I just couldn’t seem to get a grouping at 80 yards. I tell a lie - my sighting arrows (the only arrows shot during the day that don’t count towards a score) were pretty good as I got a tight grouping which included 3 golds and 3 reds. This led me to a false sense of security believing it was going to be a good day.
How wrong I was. A score of 418 after 6 doz arrows at 80 yards was well short of what I’m capable of. I had a chat with myself over lunch and attempted to focus more for the afternoon session. I did fair a bit better at the shorter distances (60 and 50 yards respectively) but overall it was a bad performance made worse by the fact that Andrew (a long time arch rival and all round decent bloke) scored well enough to get the overall second place silver medal, best 1st class archer score, the best gold prize (arrow nearest the cross in the centre of the target) and won a bottle a malt whisky in the raffle.
Talk about peaks and troughs. Monday night saw the first indoor practise night of the season. Our club shoots indoors at Quicks. I was ready to do badly considering how I had done the day before and as I was setting up my equipment I started to wonder, having paid my £54 shooting fees for the first part of the season, if it was going to be worth it. About 16 of us cramped into the tiny indoor range which was extremely hot. Les the organiser had put me on the same target as Dave Morris probably our club’s best archer.
This somehow must have raised my game as I managed to come away with a score of 542 for the Portsmouth round. Not a personal best, but close, and 38 points off the club record. It was made all the more amazing as I had to guess at a sight mark being the first time I had shot indoors with my ACE arrows. I’m now thinking about getting a team together for the National indoor competition in January at Lilleshall.
In other news it seems I have an unclaimed club record for the Ladies FITA round. I’m torn between making the claim and publicising the fact that I shoot girly distances.

GOA champs

Greenwood Osterley Club Championships

It was a really hot day (the hottest of the year in fact) and I don’t get on with the heat. Still I drank plenty of water throughout the day and was situated on target-1 nearest the clubhouse, so was able to seek some shade. I had arrived that morning at 9.00 and it was already baking hot. I knew then that we were in for a scorcher. I made the tactical decision early on not to apply and sun-cream (I hate the stuff - it’s just too greasy and I can’t get a proper grip on the bow afterwards), but I did as always wear my sunhat, turned up my collar and had long sleeves on my polo shirt to avoid sunburn.

I know I have been taking my first class scores for granted recently but I really did shoot badly at the Greenwood Osterley Club Championships. A score of 451 was second class effort. I was my first time shooting 100 yards but that was no excuse really as it is basically the same as 90 metres which I have shot before. There is maybe one metre in it. I am pleased to be shooting this distance and getting all of my arrows on the target (most of the time). I suppose to be a little fairer on myself there was a bit of a breeze - although it was the same for everyone, bar the day before where I’d managed a measly 3 dozen arrows at 70m (249 scored) I hadn’t shot for 2 weeks so maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. So yet again I think it comes down to needing more practise. It’s amazing how a gap between shoots can have such an effect.

This is how it panned out: My six arrows of sighters at 100 yards went well and I got quite a tight group with a couple of golds. It went downhill from there though and I had a few misses and mostly low scoring arrows. My 80 yards distance wasn’t much better - maybe because I’d had a couple of pints of Becks at lunchtime (they’re such a sociable crowd at GOA). Normally though I think this would have helped me relax. [Mental note - check whether alcohol is a banned substance at the Olympics]. At 60 yards a blister on my finger that had been getting bigger and bigger throughout the day finally burst. This offered some relief in that it made pulling the bow string easier but it was quite sore. The good news is at this late stage I had got my act together and my scores and groups were starting to improve.

For me the best part of the day was to come. After the main competition was complete and to allow time for the scores to be collated, we had a head-to-head match. This involved creating a leader board and each archer being paired with another in a six arrow shoot-off, with the highest score determining the winner and progression to the next round.

I was paired against Berry in the first round. As a junior she was shooting at a distance of 30 yards while I was shooting at 60 yards. I knew Berry was pretty good and had been improving a lot recently so I had my work cut out. I shot quite well and a score of 44 put me one point ahead and through to the next round. Next was a relatively new recruit - Eric. I had no idea how good he was but knew I had to put in a good score as he was shooting at 40 yards. Again there was a gnat’s whisker in it and I won by one point. My next opponent was Gary. He too is relatively new to the world of archery but is quite good already as demonstrated by his performance a couple of weeks ago in the London Archers invitation shoot. He had also just knocked out Andrew (a first class archer) in the previous round. Gary was shooting at 50 yards so again I knew I really had to do well. To my surprise I beat him and was through to the semi final. There I expected to meet Kevin (one of the top archers in the club) but he had already gone out with a surprising win by Phil. So it was Phil and I who battled it out for a place in the final. His luck had run out though and I made it through. The other semi final between Salesh and Josef had tied so they went to a one-arrow shoot-off while I waited nervously on the sideline to see who my opponent would be. Josef won it and his place in the final. I really did feel nervous and as the rest of the club members looked on I wondered if this is the same feeling I might get if I made it to the Olympics. Anyway the whistle was blown and we started shooting. Would you believe it - we both scored 45, a tie. So it went to a one arrow shoot-off. Nearest the “x” to win. I waited. Josef let his arrow go. An outer gold - nine points scored. This was going to be a tall order. I let my arrow go. An outer red- seven points scored. Josef had won, but I was pleased with my performance. The day had started badly but had ended on a high and I’d had a good day out with my archery buddies.

Bonthron Shield Half FITA

I shot my first Half FITA round at Nonsuch competing in the Bonthron Shield competition. It’s called a Half FITA because it’s half the number of arrows to a (full) FITA. This isn’t as tiring as the full version and it’s over a whole lot quicker. It still offers the opportunity to get a Bowmen or Master Bowman classification though. I didn’t quite manage that, scoring 515, only 18 points shy of Bowman class, but it was a fun day out down at my new club.

KensingtonPalaceshoot

After spending about half an hour driving up and down I finally found the entrance to the shooting field - a private gate in the wall.

The first thing I noticed on arrival was all the armed police. With Clarence House in the background we set up our gear. I have to say that it seemed a little odd to be shooting arrows towards a Royal building, but I was assured that this happened regularly being the ground for the London Archers club.

This was a team Albion event and I had been put in the Greenwood Osterley “B” team. My fellow members being Andrew, Gary and Stan. I started really well at 80 yards, and by the end of the 3^rd dozen I was third on the individual leader board. My 60 yards wasn’t so good and I’d slipped to 10^th place by the end of that session. The scores were close though and I knew I could pull back a few places if I shot well. I dug in and was rewarded with a 4^th place by the end with a score of 781. Our team came a respectable 7^th.