So It's been a few days and to be honest I've not really had a huge amount of time to think about it. Last week I took part in the Vegas shoot for the first time, which was huge, scary and didn't really go to plan. Fortunately I had done enough in earlier results at Marrakesh and Nimes (which I will write up soon) that I still made the top 16 in the world cup rankings and got to play. Awesome!
The matches themselves were held in the Arena of Hearts, one of the smaller halls just off the main entrance way. On the recurve side of the hall I was lined up against Massimiliano Mandia, who was 4th at last years Indoor world championships, ranked 132nd in the world outdoors and is a enough of a big cheese to have a profile picture on the world archery website. My fellow GB team mates didn't have it any easier, with Patrick and Bryony taking on Oh Jin Hyek and Kim Hyejin from Korea. The compounds were in the same room but shooting the other direction and there was a small gathering of spectators lined up in the middle to watch the action. If it hadn't been for the quality of the lineup everything about the layout felt quite similar to a competition at home!
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Bryony scoring, also able to see which of the two women to her right she'll be taking on next. 10 of the top 16 who qualified were from Korea.[/caption]
After three ends practice (during the first of which which Max shot 9,9,8 with one bow, shrugged, picked up the other and nailed three 10s) it was go time. I was feeling better than I had all week, but it was one hell of an effort to shoot the bow. All of my muscles were shaking and I was fighting through some long holds. I managed 29,28,29 to open and luckily that was good enough to keep me alive at 3-3. Forcing a shot that should never have gone in the fourth set left me 5-3 down and at this level of competition indoors that's a bad place to be. All I could do now was shoot a 30 and hope that my opponent gave me an opening. I remember feeling relived that at least I wasn't in the 1st vs 16th match, which was currently tied 4-4 after both of them had shot 119... I'd be long gone by now!
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Max definitely looks more relaxed here than I did. Also, someone (possibly Emma?) is stood exactly in the right place behind him to make it look like he has an awesome mullet...[/caption]
The last set was fun*. After finding some strength through desperation I got my first two shots off lightning quick, scoring a pair of tens on the left and finding myself with 70 seconds to spare. Max had dropped a point, so one more 10 and I was into the shoot off! I clicked the sight, took a few deep breaths, drew up and tried for a while to work the shot but it wouldn't move, and I came down with 40s left.
No worries, take a moment and lets go again.
I drew up again and worked extra hard, tensing my legs and abs to provide stability, driving forwards with the front hand and shoulder, pulling tight into my neck with the string hand and winding the rear elbow back behind me... But instead of going off, I stayed stuck at full draw, fighting until I could feel my arms slipping away from my body, out of the alignment and into a weak position. Shooting from there is probably a 9 at best, so I came down again and glanced at the clock: 15 seconds left**.
S#*!
At this point I knew that it takes at least 5-10 seconds for my muscles to recover from two long holds like that. Time I didn't have. So with no options left I hoisted the bow back up, abandoning any pretence at setting the shoulder position or finding alignment and just heaving as much as I can. As the sight weaves from side to side I can see blackness creeping in from the edge of my vision*** and I could hear the countdown from Emma and Patrick: 4, 3, 2, 1... At last the shot went off, god knows where. At that point I didn't even know if I was pointing at the target.
I turned off the line; what a wasted opportunity. The first two shots had been so nice, why make a meal of it like that? As I silently start considering the fact that at least my coach hadn't been there to see it, Emma's voice interrupted: "Its a 10!"
You have got to be kidding me.
But even as Patrick walked up to me incredulous: "Did you really just do that?", I spotted the shot, hanging just on the very left hand edge of the ten. No way! I let out a whoop that somewhere between laughter, celebration and relief, time for a shoot off! We're not alone, Brady tied his 5th set in a row with the 16th seed and I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that he'll be feeling more pressure than me; it would be a massive upset for him to go out in round 1 while I'm the underdog here.
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I'm not sure what this expression is... determination? Also guilty of a little mullet of my own... note to self get haircut before big tournaments.[/caption]
In the end my shoot off was quick, too quick! I put so much muscle into it that the clicker went in a fraction of a second with no struggling at all, and so it sailed off into the outer nine high left. Luck was with me again though, as Max put his 2315 on the 9-8 border, and after a bit of playing with the calipers the judge found my shot to be a fraction closer.
Well after all that drama I'm suddenly feeling pretty good about the quarter final. It's a rematch against the languid frenchman Jean-Charles Valladont, who dispatched me mercilessly in Nimes with a perfect 90. Although my heart was still beating so hard I swear the whole room must be able to hear it, I was determined to make a dent this time. After posting 30,29,28,29 to his four 29s we were tied at 4-4, and finally at this point my luck ran out. I notched up another 29 in the last set, while Jean-Charles finally nailed his bottom spot to get the 30 and progresses through.As I extracted more set points out of him than the rest of the losing quarter finalists did in their matches, I'm rewarded with a 5th place finish.
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Hard to see from the stills but this looked like a physically tough match for both of them.[/caption]
Earlier I'd been annoyed to hear that the bronze medal matches are in the same hall instead of out on the show targets to be televised, but at this point I'm glad that I can sink into a chair, decompress and watch the semi-finals without any rush. It ends up with JC against Brady in the bronze match, always a Juicy prospect for any spectator and something I'm sure the big american crowd in the main arena would have loved to watch. But it also seems I'm not alone in struggling today; rather than a torrent of 10s there are a few big mistakes and Brady in particular looks to be having to fight the bow. JC, who always looks so relaxed he could fall asleep, holds out better and takes the bronze.
And as for the rest of the matches? Patrick put up a good fight against Oh, scoring 146 but went out 7-3, while Bryony won by the same scoreline to earn a tussle with the top seed and indoor world record holder Park Sehui. Two in a row was a big ask and she went down 7-1. As for the gold matches, I wont spoil it, you can watch those yourself here.
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Patrick... airing his tab? I'll have to ask about this later[/caption]
Thanks to World Archery for the awesome photos, I'm looking forwards to next year and I'll be aiming for those finals matches in the arena next time!
*Fun now, not fun during. During was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life
**Not an accurate representation of the countdown clock, though it may as well have been as far as I'm concerned
***This is not entirely unusual for me, though it happens far less often these days... back in the day 3-4 years ago I used to regularly hold for 20-25 seconds per shot and the blacking out was a good hint that I should stop and breathe. Not the best of habits I'll concede