Pinch me!!

I got called off the line ready for my match and i was feeling ok, a bit jittery as to be expected but nothing worse than i am normally in Head to head matches. 5 minutes to go and i was inside the stadium, weird still no nerves, if anything i was quite excited to get out there and shoot.

The time came to go in, wow the stands were nearly full and a nice cheer went up when they announced my name..this is great i thought. I was up for it!!

Being the higher ranked archer I elected to shoot first, the hooter went, i shot.. a 7 to the left, hmm not too bad considering. next arrow, a 7 to the right, ok i can live with that. Third arrow, in the 9, that's more like it. I relaxed back off the line and saw my opponent had shot 9, 9 and 7, hmm not good. That's when i all went belly-up. He shot another arrow!! i'm thinking "noooo.. do we shoot 6 arrows in an end?" A quick look at my coach reassured me that it was only 3 arrows and that my opponent had shot too many arrows???

The problem was that his scored stayed up on the scoreboard. The next 3 arrows were not too great from me, and i was falling further behind. On the 3rd end i was still distracted from the events of the first end, I came up to aim and my fingers just relaxed, the arrow went sailing down the range and landed in the grass below the target. OMG I MISSED THE TARGET!! in front of 2000 people. All that was going through my head was "I'm a better archer than this, I'm not THAT bad". My second arrow went straight in the 10, and so did my third, there see i told you!

By the fourth and final end i had resigned myself to defeat but wanted to do my best still, i put in a beautiful group of three arrows all touching each other but sadly low in the 8. I congratulated my opponent and left the arena.

Once outside, i was ushered towards the media where i did one "what went wrong" interview. I was halfway through my 2nd TV interview (with the BBC) when my team manager came running up to my screaming "You've won, You've done it" His score had been adjusted due to the fact he shot too many arrows in the first end and i took the match by 1 point! The cameras were still rolling, wow what a scoop, so from being asked how i felt to go out so early, i was being asked how i felt now i've heard i've won..it was surreal in the extreme. Lou was up on the walkway so i yelled up to tell her i had won and the tv crew asked who she was, when i told her they went legging it up there to get her views. They were buzzing as much as us about it, look out for it on telly as it's unbelievable.

So the net result is that i'm through to the last 16 and shooting again tomorrow, please let it be uneventful, i don't think my nerves could take another day like today.


BBC Article HERE, see what i mean...bizarre!!!