Tokyo Olympics...

I know there is even more controversy around these Games than most others, but seeing some photos today of the archery venue during practice has ramped up the excitement for me now...

This is the finals venue:



Two Canadians entering that venue for practice. On the left is my friend Crispin Duenas, attending his 4th Olympics. Behind him is Stephanie Barret, who only started shooting archery in 2016, and is already at her first Olympics (which is quite honestly pretty amazing):



Both on the line getting some practice in...Crispin needs to move his sight a bit as the group is low right. 😉



Both men and women shoot at the same 70 m distance, and the 10 ring in the center of the target is about the size of a CD or DVD.

Crispin at full draw:



We only have one man and one woman qualified, so we don't have full teams in the men's or women's team events. But these archers will compete for individual medals, and also as a team in the first ever mixed team event at the Olympics.

Coaching this team is my good friend Shawn Riggs - we were team mates together back when I was shooting and see each other as much as we can (not much recently due to the pandemic). Shawn may be wearing the Speedmaster I gave him a few years ago, so I'll have to keep an eye out for that. Crispin and I were just discussing differences in the 9300 and 9900 chronograph movements last week, as he is considering getting himself an Omega.

There are many who believe these games in particular should have been cancelled, and I fully understand that stance. Quite frankly I am very torn on that issue myself, but since they are going ahead, I plan to enjoy them to the fullest.

Cheers, Al

Hey Al - I admire the obvious passion that you have for the sport, as evidenced mainly by your choice, years ago, to legally adopt the name "Archer". 😁

Yes, that big TV screen is probably easier to hit, but would be hard on the arrows...

Just like when I was shooting competitively, we all knew who the top archers were, as we competed against them regularly. I'm sure that they know who she, being #1 ranked in the world...

Funny you brought this up. I’m just like a shoot a bow for fun guy I happened to watch a documentary about this shot never even knew about it pretty amazing. He had two shots available, made it first try

Of note, Antonio Rebollo was a Paralympic archer, who had polio early in life.

I used to train with a Paralympic archer from Canada who went to 5 Paralympics. He was in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. He would rive his pick-up to the range, get out with crutches, unload the wheelchair out of the back by himself, get all his equipment, and join us on the range. The only thing we did for him, was collect his arrows after he shot them.

He was an excellent shot. He was able to be accurate sitting in a chair, without the benefit of the same muscle groups that we were able to use with our legs.

Photo of my buddy Shawn, coaching on the practice range - unfortunately he has his wrist the wrong way to see what watch he has on...



I've sent him a message to let me know what he's wearing...

Interesting comment, and if I can possibly risk boring the hell out of you with an answer...

Olympic archery is a bit of an unusual sport, in that the bow hand has to stay very stationary, while the draw hand on the other side of the body is moving continuously during the shot. It may look in videos like they stop, but if they do it's sort of poor form - the shot should be one continuous motion. There is a device on the bow called a clicker, and the arrow goes under that little piece of metal, and when you draw the arrow through it, it will come to a point when it drops off the tip of the arrow, and clicks against a plate on the bow - this is the signal that you are at the right tension, timing, etc. and you are good to shoot. Not my video, but a good basic overview from Crispin himself:


This is with a bow that weighs maybe 6 pounds, but the draw weight (the tension on the string) when at full draw may be in excess of 50 pounds, held with just three fingers. It's very fine motor control of that draw weight and perfectly balancing that with the push of the bow arm that is the key. You don't really pull the bow with your arm muscles once you get past the very early part of pulling the string back, but with mostly back muscles, and by moving the scapula on the draw hand side, pulling those together and expanding the chest slightly. It takes tremendous strength and control to do it well.

So the difficulty, particularly mentally, is keeping that draw hand side moving at the risk of pulling the bow left or right, and the sight coming off the center. If you are near the part of the shot where the clicker is going to release, and the sight gets pulled off from the movement of the draw hand, the tendency is to stop pulling, which is very bad. I struggled with this hugely from a mental perspective under pressure, and I would stall out right near the point of executing the shot when the arrow was about to come through the clicker.

This is similar to the yips in golf when putting, and in darts they call it "dartitis" (not sure who thought that one up!), I think it's the yips in snooker, and in archery it's commonly called "target panic." It's the ting that any archer absolutely dreads having.

When I had that under control I was beating lots of people, and when it wasn't I was losing to lots of people. On the shooting line at most events, you have someone right beside you, and I had a very bad habit of shooting when someone else's clicker went off. Then at the Arizona Cup one year, and archer from Ireland was chatting to one of my team mates, and mentioned this issue. He showed me what hew as using, which was a "thumb clicker", so it was a wire with a pad on it the contacted my thumb, so when the clicker went off, it didn't make a sound, but tapped my thumb. There was a guy in Sweden making them, so I ordered a couple, and that greatly improved things.

So yes, it's very mentally demanding, and the people who are highly successful, like Crispin who has a bronze medal at the world championships, can control this far better than I ever could.

Cheers, Al