OSG Mississauga 2016

I recently had the pleasure to be the coach once again for the Ontario Summer Games (OSGs), this year was held in Mississauga Ontario. This year was special for the athletes because it was the largest Ontario Summer games in history, awarding over 2000 awards in total. This year’s opening ceremonies were very cool, it reminded me of when I went to the Canada Winter Games. The athletes entered into a whole arena full of fans cheering them on, and they had a bunch of live entertainment. The opening ceremonies were even streamed for the first 45 minutes.

This year was also a big year for the archery event as well, for this was the first year that they change the OSG format. This year they decided to shoot two 720s the first day and the second day shooting at 720 with a round robin of matchplay and match set. Archery lingo inside, basically it means instead of shooting three distances they only shot one distance the three days. I personally think that the exposure to match play and set would be beneficial for future athletes because the tournament type would be like international events (e.g. olympics).

The tournament was an eventful year for the Eastern zone, it was definitely full of experience that these athletes will learn from and remember for the rest of their lives. They learned how to shoot in; high winds, high humidity, heat, and down pouring rain with chances of thundershowers. They learned the importance/how to keep equipment and scorecards dry. We were very fortunate to have found some towels and a laundry card that we can dry the equipment with, thank goodness I brought a hair dryer for all the shoes.

This year the committee decided that to make sure that all the athletes had a chance to experience the matchplay and match set they decided to do a round robin. Traditionally match play and match set are done in a single elimination format (or double elimination rounds if you’re in Canada). The archers seemed to really enjoy a different shooting format, after understanding the rules for the match play and match set. However, by the end of the day all the archers were completely exhausted by the end of the day.
As a coach I was completely ecstatic with the results, after all these athletes had faced challenges that most had never faced before (e.g. equipment failures, whether, or even being independent from their parents). Eastern zone did fantastically well taking home a large portion of not only the 720 medals but also for the round robin medals. The results are posted on the OSG and the OAA websites.

https://www.oaa-archery.on.ca/tournaments/records-and-results

https://www.osgmississauga.ca/sport

I hope I have the pleasure to be the coach for the Eastern zone in the 2018 OSGs in London Ontario, and if I’m super lucky I get to see these kids again.

For all my eastern zone archers that are reading, it was a pleasure to get to know you and to shoot with you.

Ontario Spring Classic

This past weekend, I attended the Ontario Spring Classic, one of Canada’s premiere archery events usually held in Toronto. This year’s event attracted over 110 archers from Nova Scotia to British Colombia and several international archers including France, Netherlands and the United States.

The Ontario Spring Classic is a two-day tournament and usually held every year over Father’s day weekend. The tournament starts with a ranking round on Saturday consisting of either double 720 round OR FITA1440 round. On Sunday the tournament finishes with a complete double elimination round.

This year’s Spring Classic was a double 720 held at Bill Connor Secondary, and doubled as trials for the Youth Olympic Games and the Pan Am games trial run. This year’s competition marked my first outdoor tournament of the 2014 season. Saturday’s weather conditions for the double 720 were crazy. For June, it was very cold at 11°C outside and there were a lot of swirling winds that caused havoc for everyone. The winds were totally unpredictable, they were constantly changing direction and speed, forcing you to really watch closely on each and every shot.

For me, I took the approach to have a good time, talk with friends, continue to embrace it as a new challenge, and a true learning experience. Although the weather finally cleared up for the last two ends, after fighting the winds, I was happy to get back to the hotel, take off my shoes, and sit in the hotel’s hot tub.

Sunday was a complete reversal of weather conditions, sunny, calm and about 20°C. It was an absolutely beautiful day for shooting. I did manage to last through three rounds of elimination, finally losing to my World Indoor Championships teammate Gayle from Nova Scotia. For me, the best part was getting back to competition, shooting with some of Canada’s top World and Olympic archers, seeing all my friends and spending time with my mom and sister who accompanied me.

MICA 2014

This past Wednesday, South nation archery supply held an awards ceremony; everyone did extremely well this past indoor season.  Sydney, Josh and Cole all did very well this year winning several club and provincial medals. This past year, I was able to participate in a couple of tournament, however for me it was nice to see everyone again after being away for school.  My highlight from this past indoor season was the MICA team event.

The Multi-Indoor Championships of the Americas OR MICA for short. MICA is only one of very few indoor International Championships that is open to all archers that you do not have to travel for. Designated host archery clubs throughout North and South America host tournaments for both individuals and teams to submit scores from January 1 – April 30. Male or female archers can compete individually in cadet, junior, senior or master categories in either compound or recurve. Additionally clubs can also host junior or senior male or female teams in either compound or recurve, provided they are all from the same club.

Since it is a FITA sanctioned event, individuals submit their score from a double indoor FITA (60 arrows) and the team event submit a FITA team score (24 arrows) where each archer shoots 2 arrows alternating for four ends. This is one of my favorite events and one of the few times you can practice the team event.

This year, I shot with my sister Sydney, and our friend Lindsay and we captured the Silver this year behind the Brazilian team. On other exciting, my brother Joshua shot with his two friends, Josh and Kaleb Parker, participating in as a Junior team [all who are not Juniors] and shot new Canadian record for Junior Men Recurve Team division with a score of 211, however finished in fifth place overall.

Congratulations to everyone at South nation for another successful year. A special thanks to our coach Kathleen Miller and Larry Smith for all their hard work this year.

Archery Skills Help Students in the Classroom

Awesome article posted by Shannon Rikard on December 18, 2013 in Archery Growth

“Once the kids realize they can only shoot if they follow the rules, they get it. I’ve seen even kids with the worst behavioral problems straighten up because they know if they follow the rules, they can shoot. It’s like magic.”

Mastering archery requires skill, concentration and perseverance. It’s a sport that’s fun, but also allows participants of any age or skill level to compete against others or challenge themselves individually. The sport has long helped archers gain confidence and physical strength, but two Texas teachers have discovered archery also helps students with math.

Mike Duncan and Raeann Melvin, who teach physical education at Nolanville Elementary School in Nolanville, Texas, started an archery class two years ago to help third- through fifth-grade students understand how to determine area and perimeter in geometry.

Read More…

Indoor Archery World Cup Final – Vegas Shoot Starts Today

 

This year’s Vegas Shoot is the biggest ever – with around 2,200 registered competitors. Attracted by a generous prize fund, the championship division features a large contingent of professional athletes each year – while the flight categories, for amateur archers, have seen a drastic increase in popularity.

Live scores are available throughout the tournament, in which archers shoot 30 arrows at a triangular triple-spot face each of the three days of the tournament. Three of these 300 rounds (an NFAA – the organisers – round in the USA) decide the final rankings at The Vegas Shoot.

Read More…

2014 Canadian National Championships

To all my followers, I’m sorry I have not blogged in a while, however my family and I just got back from Woodstock, New Brunswick for the Canadian Nationals Archery Championships.  This year’s trip to Woodstock was a 10 hour drive from Kingston, Ontario which was long however not as long as the drive to Saskatchewan a couple of years ago.

This year was the first time that all of my siblings competed in the outdoor Nationals (my sister Sydney’s and younger brother Cole’s very first nationals). We all did really well and we had a lot of fun. For me, it was great seeing all of my friends from across Canada again and spending time together as a family since it was also our family vacation.

This year’s national’s format was a little different, mainly because of the number of competitors, and setup of the venue. To accommodate everyone, the FITA 1440 and Field were split, with the Compound archers shooting the field on Wednesday, while the Recurve archers shot the FITA 1440 and on Thursday they switched.  On Friday, everyone shot the 720 round with Recurve archers in the morning and the Compounders in the afternoon.  The venue also sported two shooting fields (Range A and B ) so they had the senior males on one field, and the youth and women on the other field. It was cool, a little different from other tournaments where we all shoot together.

The main event this year was the weather, there was sunshine, rain (light and down-pour), lightning and fog. There was sunshine on Wednesday, light rain on Thursday, and torrential down-pour with lightning on Friday and back to sunshine of Saturday. The FITA 1440 on Wednesday was my only day with nice weather. The field course on Thursday was very cool and I thought it was very similar to Saskatchewan’s field course.  I loved shooting in the rain and the course was a lot of fun with all the mud and big puddles. Friday morning’s 720 was very challenging, the fog was so thick that you couldn’t tell whose arrows were who’s even through a scope. Luckily the 30-minute break because of the rain and lightning helped clear that up and we were back to rain, mud and puddles.

The only thing that I would have like to have seen handled a little differently was the Canadian Open held on Saturday.  Since, this year we had a large number of Americans participate at the Nationals it reduced the number of spots for Canadian archers in the Open. Although, I believe the Americans have every right to participate, I would have liked to have seen more Canadians in the Open. See, I believe it is very important for the development of archery in Canada to make sure archers are exposed to the elimination rounds. The elimination round is very different, are not that easy, and the primary format for international tournaments. All archers wanting to compete at the international level should become familiar with the elimination round as much as possible.

Also, in Canada to increase your ranking, you need to compete in eliminations rounds, however there are very few elimination rounds hosted in Canada. One is the Quebec Provincial Championships in September, two others are held about the same time, the Canada Cup (West Coast) and Spring Classic (Toronto) and the third is the Canadian Open during the National Championships. I hope in the future, the National archery committee allows everyone to participate in the Open if they want to.

The next Canadian National Outdoor Championships are being held in Lac La Biche, Alberta in August 2014. The schedule includes 3D from the 1^st through 4^th, the Field on 5^th and 6^th, and Target on the 7^th through the 10th.

The Evolution of the Riser

In this series I am going to discuss the evolution of the riser or the structural strength of the bow which houses the handle, to which the limbs are attached and other various accessories.  Originally the riser and the limbs were actually one piece, as you would see in a bare bow or instinctive bow, however in most modern bows the riser is completely independent component.

Historically, the original construction material was wood and sometimes combinations of different types of wood. Other historical materials included horn and sinew (A piece of tough fibrous tissue uniting muscle to bone or bone to bone; a tendon or ligament) to create composite bows.  Beautiful laminated wooden bows and risers are still manufactured for lightweight, beauty, tradition, and style.

Although some bows are still manufactured from various laminated hardwoods and are quite durable, the development of other modern components with materials such as carbon arrows and various strings, wooden risers were strained.  Therefore bow makers were forced to invest in the development of other more durable materials for competitive archers to maintain that competitive edge.  Competition target archers need enough arrow speed with great sight marks, with minimal string creep, since they practice a lot of shooting (anywhere from 150 – 1000 arrows a day).  Wooden bows will eventually break under the additional loads of pressure applied from the stress and strain.

Today there are two primary types of risers used by Olympic target archers, CNC machined aluminium and Carbon fibre or a combination of the two.  In the past, other materials and manufacturing methods were used such as forging and casting.

Forging

This method hammers a metal bar under high temperature and high pressure that results in an extremely strong riser. Typically forging is an expense development process which requires machining, straightening and painting with very few variations.

Casting

Usually a mix of aluminium and magnesium were developed with either die-casting or sand-casting methods.  Still available in the market today with low-to-mid range bow are a relatively cheap to make once you have the mould.

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CNC Machined Aluminium

A computer controlled method to machine a riser from stress-relieved aircraft grade aluminium alloy until they weigh less than 3 pounds. Sometimes, in order to reduce the costs, risers can be extruded through a die to minimise the amount of machining required. CNC risers are usually anodised to provide a hard wearing finish.

Carbon Fibre

A method of layering synthetic fibres usually over a dense foam core mould, which is cured with resin epoxy to develop an extremely strong and lightweight riser. Although this method can be expensive to develop and test with, the process has almost infinite number of possibilities in terms of strength and flexibility of design.

Currently, the market is primarily CNC Machined Aluminium with overlayed Carbon Fibre to gain the best of both worlds. Who knows what the future holds for risers as target archers look to find the competitive edge and manufacturers investigate in cost savings.

2013 MICA

Every year, COPARCO the pan-American archery organization, hosts a mail-in tournament called the Multi-Indoor Championships of the Americas OR MICA for short. MICA is only one of very few indoor International Championships that is open to all archers that you do not have to travel for.

Designated host archery clubs throughout North and South America host tournaments for both individuals and teams to submit scores from January 1 – April 30. Male or female archers can compete individually in cadet, junior, senior or master categories in either compound or recurve. Additionally clubs can also host junior or senior male or female teams in either compound or recurve, provided they are all from the same club.

Since it is a FITA sanctioned event, individuals submit their score from a double indoor FITA (60 arrows) and the team event submit a FITA team score (24 arrows) where each archer shoots 2 arrows alternating for four ends. This is one of my favorite events and one of the few times you can practice the team event.

On May 13 they officially announced that my sister Sydney, our great friend Lindsay Fulmerton and myself once again captured gold for the Multi-Indoor Championships of America Junior female team. This will be my third gold in the team event since my coach, my good friend Nancy Chalut and I were also very lucky to captured gold to in the senior division in 2011.

If you love indoor archery and would like to participate in the 2014 Multi-Indoor Championships of the Americas, contact you local club or archery organization for a host club near you.

2013 OFSAA

The Ontario High School Archery Invitational Tournament, a sanctioned Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) event is once again being hosted by Richmond Green Community Sports Centre. To my knowledge, Ontario is the only province in Canada offering a high school archery championship. I am very happy the organizers have decided to move forward with the event, since it is a good stepping-stone tournament for archers in their development into competitive archery.

Last year’s tournament saw over 440 archers compete in four divisions. Both boys and girls in Olympic recurve, Standard (one-piece fibreglass bows) shooting on a 60cm face, and compound fingers and compound release shooting on 40cm faces with everyone at 18m. This year compound bow and standard divisions compete on Wednesday, May 15^th and all Olympic recurve divisions compete on Thursday, May 16^th.

Participation is expected to be slightly less this year because of the Ontario Teachers strike impact on high-school clubs. However, if you are interested in participating in the event, please contact your high-school archery coach to find out if they are sending a team to the event and get registered.

Archery Judge

Have you ever thought about becoming an Archery Judge? For Canadians, there are basically five judging levels towards becoming eligible to judge at the Olympics:

• Level 1: Local/Club Judge
• Level 2a: Provincial Judge Candidate
  • Level 2b: Provincial Judge
• Level 3a: National Judge Candidate
  • Level 3b: National Judge
• Level 4a: Continental Judge Candidate
  • Level 4b: Continental Judge
• Level 5a: International Judge Candidate
  • Level 5b: International Judge: (Eligible to judge at the Olympics)

With the exception of the local/club judge, each level requires successful completion of the previous level. A judge with candidate status means they have completed the training but may need additional practical experience to complete the certification. Also for national, continental and international level judging, the governing body (or bodies) must recommend the judge for advancement to the next stage.

Over the past weekend, we hosted a provincial archery judging clinic at our home instructed by International judge, Randall Jones. I want to congratulate my father who is now a provincial judge candidate with the successful completion of the course and passing the exam. He will now need to judge three tournaments including one indoor, and one outdoor with one major tournament such as Ontario Target Championship to become a certified provincial judge.

If you are interested in becoming a Ontario provincial judge, the next judging clinic is being hosted by Archers of Caledon in May 11^th and 12^th. If you are interested in becoming a provincial judge, contact the Ontario Association of Archers for more information.