Innehållsförteckning för Issue 169 från Bow International

Watching the denouement of the Antalya World Cup, live just off the beach (the finals venue has moved a few feet), I was struck by the drive and talent of the Chinese recurve teams, who both made the recurve finals. Far more vocal and expressive than previous Chinese teams, who were the model of composure, it appeared from the press coverage that they were becoming rather more engaged and connected athletes, in contrast to the rather insular squads of the past. Almost no Chinese archers have been seen on the international circuit for years, and near total silence from their communications department hasn’t helped. It might be worth remembering that for years you could get almost no information out of any of the Korean athletes or coaches, and they were…

A new performance facility is being constructed by Sport England at Lilleshall National Sports Centre to combine both indoor and outdoor ranges on one site. The facility will be used by Olympic and Paralympic archers, as well as Pathway development athletes and the national compound squad. Funding for the £3.6 million project comes from Sport England, with additional support from UK Sport. Archery GB’s membership money will not be used for the facility and plans are being made for the new centre to benefit the sport in areas such as training camps, education and development opportunities. The facility will include an indoor shooting range of 70m, an outdoor shooting range of 70m x 40m, changing rooms, office and |social spaces and other workspaces. The site will haveaccessiblecarparkingandtoilets, as well as…

The international outdoor season officially started on 1 April. Perhaps not the most auspicious date, but the event that kicked it off, from 3-8 April, was exceptionally well organised and produced some elite level performances. Despite some downpours during the week, the finals day stayed dry and the venue looked spectacular. For the first time, the competition had a full live TV production, broadcasting on World Archery’s network. Two world number ones, Kathi Bauer (recurve women) and Britain’s Ella Gibson (compound women) were also in attendance. There were also 32 quota places for the European Games in Kraków on offer – including two in each of the recurve team events. It was the last chance to secure tickets and demand was still outstripping supply. The final day of the week-long…

BUILD SLOWLY BUT SURELY IN THE WEEKS LEADING UP It is stating the obvious to say the more you shoot leading up to the event, the more archery fit you will be and the more confident you will be about your shooting form. But don’t train for the sake of it without giving 100% to the session. When training, always have a purpose but keep it simple by working on only one issue at a time per session. Most top archers tend to scale down the number of arrows they shoot the week before a major tournament – but remember they also train every day. For the rest of us it might be hard just to find two nights a week to shoot, so the chances of overtraining are slight.…

If we spend a little time thinking about what we call beginners’ courses, we might be swayed to consider how we run them. For a club struggling for income, a series of beginners’ courses can raise a considerable sum. An elite-focused club might target athletics clubs, schools, colleges or universities. More often, however, clubs are doing their best to grow membership. We will also need to be cognisant of what our beginner archers are seeking. Depending on the time of year, or the time in a person’s life, a beginners’ course might serve as a holiday distraction, a person’s new go-to activity or even, and rarely, a directed focus on chasing down athletic prowess. What makes your courses work for you may be a result of what you call them.…

Now that we have fully prepared shafts – as detailed in my previous three articles – it’s time to turn our attention to what most people believe is the hardest part of arrow building. This is practical fletching, the process of attaching your chosen feathers, vanes or wings to the arrow. In this piece, we’re going to be focusing on plastic vanes. Getting a good bond between the vane and the arrow is not as easy as people often think. This is down to the fact that there are three main factors to consider. I think of this as the triangle for success, and success is dependent on each point being compatible with the others. These factors are 1) shaft surface, 2) vane, and 3) adhesive. It’s really important to…

I have no idea where the time has gone but somehow I have been writing for Bow longer than some members of our GB team have been on this planet! My message is still the same: do the strength work. I wouldn’t have had my archery career without putting in the effort behind the bow – about 100 to 150 arrows a day at my best AND doing strength work about three times a week. Archery requires a combination of physical and mental skills, including muscular endurance, stability and control. Strength training will improve these skills by building and strengthening muscles used in archery, such as those in the arms, shoulders, back, and core. These will help you achieve a more stable and consistent draw, aim and release, which can…

Scottish production company QTV has announced its sponsorship of promising young archer Cameron Radigan in support of his qualification campaign for the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. Radigan, 20, who is from Galston, Ayrshire, has risen quickly through the ranks of para-archery since joining Archery GB’s World Class Programme in late 2021. He has already represented the British Senior Para team at international events and won medals at the European Para Archery and World Para Archery Championships. QTV is partnered with World Archery, as the company that delivers the live televised events on the outdoor circuit each year. Their CEO, Jack McGill, first met Radigan at the Team Scotland Awards night in 2019 and was impressed by his story. “When it transpired he was an archer, we thought ‘how coincidental…

Apeep sight is critical to your accuracy as a compound archer – when you’re aiming, you should think of it as your rear sight. Your peep and your front sight need to be perfectly aligned so that the peep consistently encircles your scope housing at full draw. But which peep sight is going to help you achieve this? Peeps come in many different sizes and styles, and the one you choose will be entirely dependent on your set-up and shooting conditions. Before now, most archers have adopted a ‘close enough’ attitude when choosing a peep sight, but this often causes issues, particularly when you move between scopes and light conditions. We’ve all found ourselves adjusting our peep in the field, or having to change it entirely when it’s suddenly become…

The Invicta ‘Shoot to the Marks’ was hosted by the Fraternity of St George on 18-19 February 2023 in Godinton Park, near Ashford, Kent. This was the Fraternity’s first shoot of the new year, and while we shoot on many of the finest estates in the country, this shoot at Godinton was a 20-year anniversary. Space is important for this shooting tradition; room is needed where some archers can send their arrows over bow-shot lengths (300 yards). Godinton has space, plenty of trees that are hundreds of years old, beautiful vistas and, yes, much-prized dead ground, which makes the whole business of shooting to the marks much more interesting and challenging. The shoots of the Fraternity are open to all longbow archers by prior registration. Archers come from all over…

Q Why, when at least three of the world’s leading compounders are punchers, is this style of execution deemed by nearly all experts as an unacceptable method? A The question suggests that several elite archers successful on the circuit at the moment–I can think of Kyle Douglas, James Lutz and Tim Gillingham among others–are punchers. However, there is a need to understand that an archer who commands the shot is not necessarily a real puncher. There can be, and probably is, a marked difference between a command shooter and a puncher, and it stems from the level of control being utilised. A quality command shooter is deliberately pressing the post to execute the shot, but the trigger for doing so is attaining a controlled arm, a satisfactory sight picture and only then…

Late June will mark 400 days to go until the Paris Olympics, followed as usual by the Paralympics. The Olympic ‘movement’ – the global network of sports, sports professionals, athletes, federations and related staff who coalesce around the Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee – will be breathing a sigh of relief after the terrifying chaos leading up to Tokyo. The 2020 Games, held in 2021, was in danger of being outright cancelled several times due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. If it had, the fallout for the sports world would have been catastrophic. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of people’s jobs worldwide rely on the Olympics and the revenue it generates, mostly via television rights. In the end, the Japanese government managed to marshal an extraordinary plan, staffed by volunteers, to keep…

The board of Archery GB has appointed Ruth Hall as its new chief executive, starting in May 2023. Hall joins from Sport England’s National Outdoor Centre. She arrives at Archery GB with 15 years’ executive leadership experience, four years of it in the sports industry. She has also served on the boards of several companies and holds various board positions, including with Canoe Wales, the national governing body for paddle sport in the Principality. She replaces Neil Armitage, who was in the role from 2016 but left Archery GB, somewhat hurriedly, last year. “I’m delighted to be joining Archery GB at such an important time for the organisation.” said Hall. “I’m really looking forward to working with the senior leadership team, to build on the strong foundations throughout the organisation,…

Homo sapiens who migrated to Europe 54,000 years ago may have introduced archery techniques to the Continent, according to a new study published in Science Advances. Researchers examined stone points and artefacts discovered at the Grotte Mandrin, a vaulted rock shelter directly overlooking the middle valley of the Rhône River in France, where they found evidence of bow hunting. “We’ve shown that the earliest known Homo sapiens to migrate into Neanderthal territories had mastered the use of the bow,” said Laure Metz, an archaeologist at Aix-Marseille University in France. Although no bows were found at the site, previous discoveries of stone and bone points suggest that bow-and-arrow hunting originated in Africa around 60,000 to 80,000 years ago. The findings also indicate that Homo sapiens visited Grotte Mandrin 56,800 years ago,…

Imagine air was visible and you could see the turns and swirls that it makes as an object – an arrow, say – passes through it. This, in part, is what computational fluid dynamics (CFD) enables, providing amazing insights into flow structures, pressures and velocities around a moving object. It also calculates the forces and moments exerted on that object as it passes through a fluid such as air. Following Dr James Park’s article on arrow drag and lift in issue 166, your writer – an ageing but enthusiastic fifth-season archer with CFD-capability on his desk – got to work. To perform CFD simulations a 3D CAD (computer-aided design) model of an arrow was created based on my Easton ACC 2-04s (see Figure 1). Care was taken reproducing the details, especially…

Over the past few months, I have been experimenting with carbon arrows, with the plan to start shooting in the National Field Archery Society’s Traditional Bowhunter class. So when the opportunity arose to try out the Easton Carbon Legacy arrows, it seemed too good to be true. FIRST IMPRESSIONS Easton promotes these as offering “the finest vintage aesthetic in a highly effective hunting carbon arrow”. I have no experience of hunting but agree they are aesthetically pleasing as they look great straight out of the box. We all know that arrows that look good must fly well. These carbon arrows have a woodgrain effect with white cresting at the nock end coming fitted with 3D Super Nocks (6.5mm). The shafts are 34in at full length and included are aluminium inserts…

It sometimes seems hard to believe now, but a huge swathe of London just north of the City was once dedicated to archery practice, shooting at and between permanent targets called ‘marks’, trying to get as close as possible to each one. It’s essentially similar to a golf course, shooting from one hole to the next. During the 1500s, archery was governed by statute and all males were required to participate, although some were more enthusiastic than others. Special areas were designated for archery practice, such as St George’s Fields in Southwark and Finsbury Fields in the north. Although both areas were similar in size and purpose, the Finsbury Fields gained greater attention due to the presence of the Honourable Artillery Company. Originally, Finsbury Fields was marshy, uneven wasteland area,…

The youngest of the Great British women’s team, Penny Healey, at 18 years old, has proven yet again that she is here to stay, and can only get better. Putting in the hours – including training after closing time at the training centre – Penny has quickly climbed her way to the top of the world rankings after winning her first two international competitions of the year, in Lilleshall and Antalya. The top recurve women’s rankings have seemed to be the most changeable over the past year. While the big names of Korea were not present in Türkiye, Penny told World Archery: “Last year, I beat An San, and took Choi Misun to a shoot-off, so I think I have potential against them.” TELL US ABOUT YOUR WEEK AT THE…

The era of Genghis Khan, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries, was a time of great military conquest and expansion. The man who founded the Mongol Empire, was known for his formidable military tactics and his highly skilled army of soldiers and archers. Archery played a crucial role in the military campaigns of Khan and his successors. Mongolian archers were known for their accuracy, speed and deadly force, and were feared by their enemies. Mongolian archers were also able to shoot arrows from horseback, which allowed them to quickly move and attack their opponents while remaining a safe distance away. This made them particularly effective in battle as they could shoot arrows at their enemies while remaining mobile and difficult to target. Mongolian archery was also distinctive for…