More Piccies.

A few more photos from Arizona including another super cool "Arrow in flight" one.

It's all over.

I was right when i thought i would be shooting against George Tekmitchov in the 1/32nd elimination round. We had our practice then went straight into the shoot-offs. I shot fairly well and was 5 points up after 6 arrows, i increased my lead by a further 9 points with the 2nd 6 arrows and ended up beating him by 14 points (103 - 89) BTW this is the guy that actually designed the X10 arrows i was shooting :)

In the 1/16th round i was drawn against the number 4 seed and had a reasonable shoot but could not match the arrows Crispin was shooting and finished with 97 points to his 108.

My performance in the head to heads moved me up 11 places in the final rankings and i finished in 25th place overall tied with 3 other archers so i am absolutely delighted with my performance in this tournament. 25th out of 98 recurve archers is a very respectable score for a Paralympic Archer in an Able bodied World Ranking event.

Today is the final day and the team rounds, unfortunately i am the only recurve archer here with the squad so no shooting for me, so i will just be spectating. I have had an awesome time here, i've met some fantastic people and my confidence in my shooting had grown immensely. I am really looking forward to this outdoor season now and what a way to start it, every other shoot is going to be a bit of an anti-climax now though :)

Finally here are some pics of some of the stars i had the good fortune to meet while i was here,
From the left they are; Rick Mckinney, Richard "Butch"Johnson and Ed Eliason.

End of qualification

We got to the field bright and early this morning and the wind was howling, not a good sign. Practice got underway and I managed to get my arrows on the target though 90m still looks an awful long way. The Tournament got underway At 9am sharp and I felt I shot reasonably well. By the time we got to the 70m distance the wind was gusting up to 45mph and I had trouble staying upright, but I managed to survive the distance and scored fairly well.... all things considering.

So at the end of the first day I finished in 37th place which I am more than happy with taking into account that I am competing against the worlds best “able-bodied” Archers.
A year ago I would have laughed if you had told me I would be shooting against the likes of Rick McKinney and there I was 15 points ahead of him at the halfway point!!!

Today the weather was a lot kinder to us and I managed to score a personal best for the 50m distance. My 30m was nothing stellar but I shot to about my average so I am fairly pleased with my overall performance today.

The final results haven’t been published yet so my fingers and toes are crossed that I will make it in the top 64 cut so I can shoot in the elimination matches tomorrow, because we all know that anything can happen in the shoot offs.

I’ll post results as soon as I get them. Meanwhile here is a picture of me and KiSik Lee regarded as the greatest coach ever, what a honour it was to meet the guy.

**Update** Results just in, I finished in 36th place overall so i will be shooting in the elimination matches tomorrow. Looks like I should be shooting against George Tekmitchov (He's one of the head honchos at Hoyt and did the Archery commentating at the Athens Olympics)

Looks like i beat Rick McKinney too :)

You expect me to hit THAT..from HERE !! ??

Up bright and early this morning and off to the range to get our first taste of shooting in the desert. Practice went fairly well but I was still in that “OMFG… 90 metres looks miles away!!!” mode at the start. I soon settled down and started hitting the centre..ish J

It did get very hot around lunchtime and the wind was doing curious things but it made it more challenging to say the least.

Finally, check out the amazing picture below. Grieg (one of our coaches) managed to get this photo just as I released, you can see the arrow just leaving the string. Photos like this are incredibly hard to get and seeing as the arrow leaves my bow at over 190 feet per second you can understand why.

Day off tomorrow so I’m going sunglass shopping! Then I’ll be ready for another full days practice on Wednesday. The Tournament starts on Thursday so check back regularly for updates.

Oh and apart from the shooting and the suicide (True) in the hotel everything is going smoothly

Till later……

Phew...it's warm here!

We arrived safely last night at around 9pm local time. The trip was uneventful but very long (I’d been up for around 24 hours by the time I eventually got to bed)

The Hotel is very nice, the weather is beautiful, it’s very sunny with very little wind just about perfect conditions for shooting. I can’t wait till we get up the field tomorrow to start some practicing.

Thankfully we have a fairly good internet connection in the hotel so I will get some photos uploaded as well tomorrow so you can see what the venue is like. We will be travelling over to the Ben Avery shooting facility this afternoon just to check it out and get a feel for the place.

Till tomorrow……

And so it begins.........

I'm getting a little excited i have to admit. In just 5 days time i'm flying out to Arizona USA with the rest of the team to shoot in the 2007 Arizona Cup.

I'm going to be shooting alongside some seriously good Archers.... legendary even, Rick Mckinney, Vic Wunderle, Ed Eliason and Butch Johnson to name but a few. I'm going to do my very best to update this blog while i'm out there so keep checking back as i'll try to post as much news and as many pics as i can.

It's going to be my first major Tournament this year so i'm looking to do well, my bow is tuned beautifully, i have 2 sets of shiny new arrows, all fletched to perfection so i'm as ready and prepared as i'm going to be.

I have to get a good world ranking this year to ensure my place in Beijing next year, so every tournament is majorly important from now until the World Championships in Korea (October)

Wish me luck!!