So what is plan for the future?
In the short term it is to see out the domestic season here in the UK, with the national series finals at the end of September and one eye on the national rankings. By next July I need to have shot at least 665 on a 70m round to qualify for the World Champs; with a current best this year of 660 this shouldn't be too big an ask. In October I'll be doing my first proper FITA field round; it will be my first time shooting unmarked distances and I'm really looking forwards to an unusual challenge for me.
Over the winter I'll attempt to qualify for the European indoors in march, going to Marrakesh for the first stage of the Indoor world cup, while seeing out my final student indoor season. The latter is where I really began to get competitive in the first two years of shooting and to be honest I'll be sad when I'm no longer able to take part.
Come summer 2017 its all go, with four international tournaments targeted:
-
May: European Grand Prix stage 1 (Legnica, Poland)
-
Aug: World cup stage 4 (Berlin, Germany)
-
Aug: World University Games (Taipei City, Taiwan)
-
Oct: World Championships (Mexico City, Mexico)
Of course in that time I still need to feed myself too. I'm at the tail end of a PhD right now, with six months left of funding and a fair amount of experiments to do. Plus the minor task of writing 150+ pages of thesis. Although technically I am enrolled until next October at the University it's not rocket science to realise that I'll need to start working properly and getting paid before then if I'm to afford all of these expensive international trips. Unfortunately my career plan is somewhat less well formed than the archery project, so we will have to wait and see what comes out of that...