Archery is not all about Winning

Sport should be about participation and physical fitness, not solely about winning. Archery is a sport you can participate in for your entire life. One of the things my coach always told me was there is a real danger of achieving success too earlier in young archers. Young kids sometimes get use to winning, and they start to expect it. They never expect to have to work at it again to win and archery (and sport in general) loses more participants that way than any other.

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As a national level athlete, everyone expects me to win all the time. I sometimes want to yell out “It just doesn’t work that way”. There is very little difference between top level athletes and it is more than a game of inches. As you develop into one of those athletes that are lucky enough to gain sponsorship, there is even more pressure to win. This is why I believe some athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs or cheating.

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The movie “Cool Runnings” has an excellent scene where Derice Bannock ask Irv why he cheated…

Irv: It’s a fair question. It’s quite simple, really. I had to win. You see, Derice, I had made winning my whole life, and when you make winning your whole life, you have to keep on winning, no matter what. Understand?

Derice Bannock: No, I don’t understand. You won two gold medals. You had it all.

Irv: Derice, a gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.

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Personally, it really troubles me to hear about athletes that use performance enhancing drugs or cheat, especially successful ones. They have made winning their whole life and they are not enough without it.

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As part of your New Year’s Resolution, why not make sure you are participating in Archery or any other sport for the right reasons. Whether your are participating for the competition, hunting, social aspect, physical fitness or just for pure fun, make sure you set your goals to participate whether you win or not.

Ontario Field Championships

This weekend, York County Bowman in New Market Ontario hosted the Ontario Provincial Field Championships, a two-day IFAA tournament with field round the first day and a hunter round the second day. IFAA field tournaments differ slightly from FITA field tournaments, besides being in yards not meters, there are stations with walk-ups or fan shooting and hunter includes odd distances like 53 yards and 20 feet.

I really enjoy shooting in field tournaments, they are just pure fun. Walking through the bush shooting at various size targets from various distances. You shoot up and down hills and over streams with the opportunity to shoot in various stances, on rough ground and at various angles to the target. This year, it was a great opportunity to shoot and practice angles in preparation of the upcoming National Field Championship in Victoria British Columbia next week.

It also marked the first outdoor tournament for my youngest brother Cole who is nine.  Being the youngest of four, it has been a challenge for him living in the shadow of his older brothers and sisters. He has always wanted to do things that we are doing.  Earlier in the year, he shot his first indoor tournament however came up just short of medaling. This time he would not be denied, it was a lot of walking for him however it was all worth it when he received his Gold medal in the Pre-cub recurve division.

Congratulations Cole!

Canada’s wait continues

Canada’s wait for it’s first Olympic medal will unfortunately be extended four more years. Both Crispin Duenas of Ontario and Marie-Pier Beaudet of Quebec were eliminated in their opening match in London.

Crispin Duenas : http://www.tsn.ca/story/?id=402049

Marie-Pier Beaudet : http://www.tsn.ca/story/?id=401855

Nonetheless, I am very proud of them. While watching these games, I can empathize with the pressure that they are experiencing. After participating in the World Championship in Las Vegas this past winter, I have a new appreciation of the pressure that is cast-upon athletes at these competitions.

At large competitions like the Olympics and World Championships they try to make archery more viewer friendly for the spectators through the addition of commentators. This can be very nerve racking for the archers as they announce each shot and various competitors’ scores, sometimes right at the very moment of your release. In my team bronze medal match, the commentators were already declaring victory for the other team before we had finished shooting. It is almost impossible to block it out, at this level it is about who can manage their nerves and the pressure since they are all excellent shooters.

I have also read comments of news stories, blogs and twitter asking “Why is archery an Olympic sport?”.  For those people, I challenge you to pull 50 pounds, hold for 7 seconds with enough calm composure to hit an apple 70 meters away, adjusting on the fly for all the elements. Now repeat 72 times, consistently. It takes strength, endurance, and composure, just like any other sport.

All of these archers are amazing athletes and deserve to represent their respective countries at these games. For Canada, eighth and twenty-ninth in the world are awesome!

Congratulations, Team Canada on a job well done.

South Korea – 2012 Women’s Team Olympic Gold

In a rematch of the 2008 Beijing Games, South Korea edges China to capture the country’s seventh consecutive women’s team gold medal.

Read more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18904388

Italy – 2012 Men’s Team Olympic Gold

Michele Frangilli shot a bull’s-eye with the final arrow, giving his Italian team a one-point win over the United States in the gold medal match of the men’s archery team competition.

Italy earned its first gold medal in the event with the 219-218 decision, having taken silver behind South Korea in 2000 and ’08. The U.S. knocked off the heavily favored Koreans in the semifinals.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/07/28/italy-edges-us-men-for-archery-gold-on-final-arrow/?test=olymp#ixzz21wjI6OFd

2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies

On Friday, London, England will host the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games. Over the years, there have been some awesome opening ceremonies including the last Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. For me, last year’s ceremony in Vancouver, British Columbia was amazing and has a special place in the heart of every Canadian. However, recently I watched the 1992 Barcelona Olympic opening on YouTube, and I think I have found a new favourite, as should every archer.

Check it out the entire 1992 opening ceremonies in HD.

Good luck to all athletes and a special cheer to both Crispin Duenas of Ontario and Marie-Pier Beaudet of Quebec as they compete in archery and attempt to bring home the first Olympic archery medal in Canadian history. All of Canada is pulling for you.

GO CANADA GO.

Olympic Spot for Canadian Women

Marie-Pier Beaudet of Lévis, Quebec won Gold at the Continental Qualification Tournament for the Americas held on April 22nd in Medellin, Colombia and assures Canadian women a spot at the 2012 Olympics in London.

… Only three Olympic quota spots (one per country) were available in the individual event category at the Continental Qualification Tournament for the Americas. By virtue of Marie-Pier Beaudet’s gold medal performance, Canada was guaranteed one of the three quota spots in the individual category. Mexico and Colombia won the two remaining Olympic quota spots. A total of 64 female archers will qualify for the London Olympics….

Read the entire article on Archery Canada.

Congratulations to Marie-Pier and the entire Canadian Team.

Mission Accomplished

No one can experience things for you. They can describe them in detail, draw pictures, give you a slide show, but you need to be there to truly understand what it’s like. That describes my trip to World Indoor Archery Championships in Las Vegas, NV.

I have been back for a week now, and thought I should blog about my experience. My goals before leaving were very simple; learn and enjoy the complete experience. If all I bring back is the knowledge of what it takes to compete that the World level, I will succeed.

Well mission accomplished, I gained the experience I was looking for and I now know what it takes to compete at the international level.

Although, I really enjoyed the learning experience and met several new friends from various other countries, it was extremely nerve racking. Prior to the competition beginning, I was shooting extremely well right up to the minute the announcer came on and declared “Welcome to the World Championships” and this set the wheels in motion. I was finally here competing for my country, and the whole world is watching.

My coach, Kathy Millar, tries to prepare us for this type of thing. Every couple of weeks in class we practice with distractions however nothing can prepare you for that level of distraction with loud fans, multi-lingual teams, and the constant commentators. It started with the introductions, world champion here, junior world champion there and me. Then the distraction of the commentator constantly announcing scores and who is shooting and what they did or needed to do. He even declared the winner in our of the bronze medal match even before we shot our final arrow.

Although individually I finished tied for 17^th in the recurve junior women division; my junior women’s team set a new national record, even though we lost in the bronze medal match on the final end to the host Americans. Also congratulations to all my Canadian team members, although none of us medaled in this competition, we all preformed well and showed the world that the Canadians can compete at any level.

Silver at the Pan Am Games

Congratulations to Canada’s Crispin Duenas for capturing a Silver medal at this year’s Pan Am Games in Guadalajara Mexico.

Crispin Duenas participated in the men’s Olympic recurve class and was second after the qualification round with 1337 points and breezed through to the quarterfinals with 6-0 victories over Cristobal Antonio Merlos of El Salvador, Jaim Quintana of Cuba and Jake Kaminski of the USA.  In the semi-finals Crispin faced Daniel Pineda of Colombia, the eventual Bronze medal winner, in a very tough match reaching 5 sets which Crispin won 6-4 to advance to the Gold medal match.

In the Gold medal match, Crispin faced number one ranked Brady Ellison of the United States. Crispin fought until the last arrow in a match as it needed to go to a fifth set. The US archer was ahead 4-2, but in the fourth set Crispin shot a perfect 30 to tie the match. Ellison’s 29 was just a single point better than his Crispin’s 28 in the fifth end, and Ellison captured the Gold with a 6-4 win and Crispin captured the Silver medal.

Congratulations to the entire Canadian team for their efforts at the Pan Am games.

Gold and Silver at 3D worlds

Congratulations to Canada’s Peter Garrett and Tim Watts for capturing Gold and Silver respectively at this year’s World 3D championships in Austria.

Peter Garrett participating in the men’s instinctive class was 14th after the qualifications rounds, 37 points out of first. After the the first round of eliminations he managed to move into 7th place and finally into first after the second round of elminiations. In the finals Peter first faced off against second ranking Peter Nahoczki of Hungary winning 37 – 31 to move to the Gold medal match to face number one ranked Alexander Parschisek of the host country Austria. Peter outduelled Alexander 26-21 to capture the Gold for Canada.

Tim Watts participating in the compound men class was 9th after the qualifications rounds, only 9 points out of first. Tim moved to 8th after the first round of eliminiations and was fourth after round two. Tim first defeated 7th ranked Christofer Herfindal of Sweden 38-35 to move the Gold medal match to face Herwig Haunschmid of host country Austria. Although it was close match at 41-39 the Austrian captured the Gold with Tim bringing home the Silver.

Congratulations to the entire Canadian team.