European Grand Prix

The tournament was supposed to be a Double 720 ranking round and the Head to head matches, unfortunately the heavens opened on Friday and we had to stop after shooting just 4 dozen of the 1st 720.

By the afternoon the field was under 4 inches of water so shooting was scrapped totally that day.Saturday we managed to shoot the remaining 2 dozen arrows from the first round and that was it. So it was decided that the head-to-head part of the tournament would be replaced by the 2nd 720 round so at least people could get scores for World rankings etc.

I shot as well as i could have hoped for considering the conditions and went from being 9 points behind the 3rd placed archer in the first round to winning the Bronze medal by 4 points so i was very happy. The Chinese visitors took Gold and Silver and it was very interesting and useful to actually see them shoot and to see the level that they are currently at as they were pretty much an unknown entity before the event.

Anyhoo enough rambling..in a nutshell i beat all the European Archers which is what i set out to do and came home with the bronze so it was a successful trip, oh and while i was there i was officially informed that i will be shooting for GB at the IPC World Championships in Korea (Sept 30th - Oct 11th)

At last !!

This weekend I shot a double FITA at the NCAS tournament in Bradford, the weather stayed relatively ok thankfully as i was expecting to get drenched again. Saturday was a bad shoot, one of those where nothing seems to go right. I decided to stop shooting before i got myself into a really negative state of mind.

It seemed to do the trick as on Sunday i came out guns blazing, i shot my highest ever end at 90m (56) and my highest ever 70m distance (312). I finished on a score of 1219 which was also a FITA P.B. for me, it was also my 3rd MB score of the season so now i am officially a Master Bowman !!

I have another FITA shoot this weekend and then the following Wednesday i'm of to sunny Stoke Mandeville to shoot in the European Grand Prix. This is a great 5 day tournament where National Teams from all over Europe shoot a double 720 over 2 days to get rankings for the elimination rounds.

This year is going to be very special as the Chinese Paralympic Team are attending, it's going to be a good tester for the World Championships later in the year. I did quite well at this event last year getting double Bronze medals and my shooting has improved quite a bit since then so i'm hoping to do a little better this time around.

Fingers crossed!!

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Sorry for my lack of updates recently but times just flown, you know how it is. I didn't shoot at Oxford in the end as i felt my dizzy spells deemed it too dangererous to actually shoot near other people. It took around 5 weeks for my head to settle down but i'm all good now.. thankfully.

My shooting has been going rather well, i've shot several PB's lately and i've got 2 of the 3 scores needed for my Master Bowman classification.

Last weekend was the GWAS Regional Outdoor Championships, this is a fantastic event held in the grounds of Dunster Castle and probably one of the nicest venues i've shot at. The last two years have been scorching hot but unfortunately this year was cold, Windy and non-stop rain..ugh!

Anyway I shot reasonably well on the 1st day (The round is a Double York spread over 2 days) and was sitting in 2nd position, 5 points behind the leader and 1 point ahead of the 3rd placed guy. I arrived at the field on Sunday in the pouring rain and it pretty much remained that way off and on for the rest of the day. I shot better somehow than the saturday and to my suprise everyone else seemed to be 20-30 points down on the previous days scores so yes that means i won it and became this years Regional Outdoor Champion!

The trophy is very nice but sadly we aren't allowed to keep them as they are quite valuable and kept on permanent display in Dunster Castle.

We won't mention the fact that when i was presented with the trophy i kinda ..err.. dropped it, there were gasps of horror as the base bounced off the table and onto the floor. I don't think my comment of " lucky it wasn't a new one!" went down too well with the officials though..Ahh well :)