2013 Ontario IFAA Indoor Field Championships

From January 19^th-27^th Ontario held it is first of two annual indoor provincial championships, the indoor Field Championships. This annual tournament is hosted by many sites across the province with mail-in scoring. Since indoor tournaments do not have varying weather conditions, you can facilitate a larger target population and multiple host clubs as long as you employ provincial level judges.

This tournament consists of two rounds of 6 ends, with five arrows per end. The target is a 5 ring IFAA target with a white center and four blue rings. The center white is worth 5 points and contains an inner X ring used for tiebreakers. Scoring is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  You can choose to shoot a single spot, or a 5 spot with only the 4, 5 rings. This a good option for consistent archers who want to avoid breaking arrows, similar to selecting a 3-spot in a FITA tournament.

These indoor championships follow IFAA rules which are slightly different from FITA rules. The most significant in my opinion is the scoring.  I will not explain all of them however two of the differences are the shorter distances for younger archers and age divisions. To start peewee and pre-cub archers, like my little brother Cole, are able to compete at 10 yards (8M) instead of 20 yards (18M) which is better suited for their poundage. Next the age division you compete under is determined by your age on the tournament date rather than how old you will be at the end of the year.

Personally I enjoy the field championships and I find it a great way to start a season and benchmark your shooting status at the beginning of the season.  Next year, if you have an opportunity, I would strongly recommend you sign-up for an indoor field championship; you will not be disappointed, it’s a lot of fun.

Olympic Gold for Jin Hyek OH

Jin Hyek OH of South Korea captured the men’s individual gold medal today after defeating Takaharu FURUKAWA of Japan 7-1. Jin Hyek OH adds the gold medal to the bronze the men’s team won earlier in the week.

In the Bronze medal match, Xiaoxiang DAI of China forced a shoot off against Rick van der VEN of the Netherlands after trailing 4-0. Rick van der VEN earlier in the day defeated number one seed and world record holder Im Dong-hyun of South Korea. In the single shot playoff, Xiaoxiang DAI captured the bronze with a perfect 10.

Read More : http://www.ctpost.com/sports/article/Oh-gives-South-Korea-another-archery-gold-3760188.php

South Korea, Mexico and Mexico

Top-seeded Bo Bae KI of South Korea captured her second Gold of these 2012 Olympics in the Women’s Indivdual Recurve today. Mexico’s Aida ROMAN and Mariana AVITIA captured the Silver and Bronze respectively.

The gold medal match was a seesaw battle that saw Bo Bae KI narrowly beat Aida Roman in a shoot-off.

Read More about here : http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/archery/korea/olympics/result/result-ki-grabs-gold-in-archery-final_37821.html

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.

OFSAA Archery Invitational Tournament

On May 18^th to May 19^th Richmond Green Community Sports Centre will host the 2011 Ontario High School Archery Invitational Tournament, a sanctioned Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) event.

This is a great tournament for high school aged archers, divided up by gender (male and female) and bow class (Standard, Olympic, Compound Limited and Compound Unlimited).  This is a double 300 shot on a 60 cm face at 18 meters with the compound classes shooting the first day and the recurve archers shooting the second day. The winners receive a medal for gold, silver or bronze.  For those schools that are lucky enough to have three or four athletes in the same division (e.g. Female Standard Class) participating, there is also a team event, for which the winning team receives a championship banner to be displayed at their school.  All full-time high-school athletes are eligible to participate. A minimum qualifying score for 175 of 300 on a 60cm target face is required however; this may vary depending on the number of archers in your high school archery club.

Last year was my first time competing at the OFSAA High School Archery Invitational Tournament and I was very fortunate to win the silver medal. Molly Solc of LaSalle Secondary School in Kingston won the Gold and Chantelle Petrie of Regina Mundi College won the Bronze.  This year I have the great pleasure to have my younger sister Sydney compete with me for our high school, Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute (KCVI).  KCVI is one of the oldest high schools in Canada and is the high school of our first Prime Minister Sir John A Macdonald.  Together, Sydney and I hope to represent our school well and we are investigating the possibility of starting our own KCVI archery club to compete as a team at next year’s event.

With over 400 high-school aged athletes competing every year, it is a great opportunity to meet new friends and re-unite with old friends from all over the province of Ontario.  If your school has an archery club or if you are interested in participating in next year’s event , please contact OFSAA and/or the OAA (Ontario Association of Archers) for more details including necessary signatures, coaches and principal’s permission.

NFAA Indoor National Field Championships

I recently returned from the US NFAA Indoor National Field Championships held in Louisville Kentucky.

This tournament is a great opportunity to experience a large indoor tournament and get some exposure to the pressures of higher level competition. This year there were over 1300 participants in one of the world’s largest indoor field tournaments. The tournament is held over the course of three days with Friday as practice, the weekend of competition and also boosts a large archery equipment show in the world.

This year I was asked to participate on behalf of Ontario Association of Archers along with four other Ontario archers including Adam Serdynski, Eric Peters, Chantelle Petrie and Sheila Madahbee. Team Ontario managed to capture three medals, Shiela won Gold in the Adult Female Bowhunter Freestyle, Adam won silver in Youth Male Freestyle Limited Recurve/Longbow and I had the good fortune of capturing the silver in the Young Adult Female Freestyle Limited Recurve/Longbow division. Congratulations to all my Ontario team-mates.

So if you want to experience a great, fun, large indoor tournament, I highly recommend registering in the future.

Silver is a very nice colour

I returned last night from Halifax and the Canada Winter Games . I shot for Team Ontario in the Individual event and after the first two days of qualification ranking, I was tied for third place and received an automatic bye to the quarterfinals held on Thursday. After winning my first match was against Manitoba (104-99), I faced number 2 seed Alberta winning by a single point (101-100) to advance to the Gold Medal match.   I then faced number 1 seed Quebec however I lost by only 2 points 112 -110 (out of 120) to capture the Silver medal.

On Friday, Jin Lee of Thornhill and I teamed up for the team event, using our combined scores from the qualifications rounds, we were ranked fourth and received a bye to the quarterfinals. After winning our match against fifth seeded British Columbia, we lost to first seeded Alberta to move in the Bronze medal match against third seeded Quebec. Unfortunately, Jin and I were unable to upset Quebec and we lost the Bronze medal match by a single point 222-221 (out of 240).

I really enjoyed competing and forming new friendship with these awesome archers from across Canada. The Canada Games were an amazing experience and since the aged limit is 22, I hope to have another opportunity to represent Ontario at the next Canada Winter Games in four years in Prince George BC.

Lyon wins Silver

Jason Lyon of Canada won a silver medal in the men’s individual recurve at the Commonwealth Games to win Canada’s third archery medal.

As the Commonwealth Games third seed entering the semi-final, he was able to defeat the number 2 seed, India’s Jayanta Talukdar to advance to the finals. In the finals, Jason faced India’s Rahul Banerjee, who is the No. 15 seed in the World and No. 1 seed in at these Commonwealth Games.  Jason shot very well and forced six ends however fell a single point short of the gold medal.

Read all about the finals on FITA website.

Congratulations Jason.

Canada Wins Silver

Congratulations to Canada’s Women Compound Team who won Silver today at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India.

The women’s compound team consists of Camille BOUFFARD-DEMER of Quebec, Doris JONES of Manitoba and Ashley WALLACE of Alberta shot extremely well and the whole country should be proud of them.

FITA described the finals as “… a high-quality affair, with no archer scoring less than a nine in each of the four ends. Neither team gave an inch in the final; with England’s final score only one point off Russia’s World Record of 233 set in 2008.” Read all about it here.

Way to go Canada.