Outdoor Archery Season, 2000

Summary

Fita average

 Dist	 Hits  Golds    Score   Low  High  S. Dev. Num
  90m   35.70   3.50   260.80   242   279  11.7627  10
  70m   36.00   4.90   295.70   275   310  10.2279  10
  50m   36.00   6.70   302.00   288   320   9.2952  10
  30m   36.00  16.90   335.70   327   342   3.6892  10
  All  143.70  31.70  1194.20  1151  1231  26.1335  10

Competitions

Canada Cup, 27th-28th May

First. The weather for this tournament was pretty strange. It poured with rain all Friday night, promising a thoroughly wet weekend, however by Saturday morning the rain had stopped and the wind had started. It increased before the start of the tournament to a strong, blustery wind, which made shooting quite tricky at times. My 90m and 70m scores suffered quite a bit from this, but I managed to pick up a bit at 50m, even though the wind had not abated, and my 30m was positively good for the conditions. I finished the day placed first on the Fita. By evening, the wind had dropped again, and Victoria Bowmen put on a barbecue, with lots of good food. Sunday was warm and sunny, with only light breezes. The Fita shot on Saturday was used as a seed for a double elimination round. I shot reasonably throughout, with a few lapses in form and concentration, and one bit of luck as my inexperienced opponent threw a match that he should have won. I won both of the halves of the double elimination, giving me the overall first place as well.

Victoria Fita Star, 17th-18th June

For me, this is the tournament that never was. I decided to travel up to Victoria in the morning of the competition, rather than stay over the previous night. I got up early, and drove up to the Canadian border. The immigration officer told me I had to get a new six-monthly stamp in my passport, and that the office there was closed until 8am. I had to re-enter the U.S.A. (suffering all of the usual delays there, even at 6am), go over to the Blaine office, and get a stamp there. I went a bit fast to try to catch the ferry, and was stopped by a police car. The police man was much nicer than the immigration officer, and let me off with a warning, because he'd heard what a bad day I'd had already. I reached the ferry just in time to see the ferry leave the dock. As the next ferry was in two hours' time, and I would miss the start of the competition, I turned around and drove back to Seattle. This day was a great disappointment, as I had been hoping to do well.

Kenmore Ranges Fita, 1st-2nd July

First. This was my club's first Fita competition for several years (and possibly ever). The attendance was very low, but we had a good couple of days fun shooting. I won by a small margin, with a result that I wasn't entirely pleased about.

Sherwood International, 15th-16th July

Before going to the Sherwood shoot, I had been told that it was one which I had to attend. The round is a 10-zone scoring American 900 round (60, 50, 40 yards), but the main focus of the weekend is the sociability, and the friendly rivalry with Nottingham, England. The Sherwood International is a challenge match between Sherwood and Nottingham, but residents of both Oregon and Washington are eligible for the Sherwood team. I shot reasonably at the start of the first day, ending the first distance a little behind Ed Eliason, who was visiting for the weekend. My 50 and 40 yard scores slipped considerably, possibly due to the sociable drinking which is associated with the shoot.

The second day saw the field being re-seeded by the previous day's score, and I ended up on the second target down, shooting with Brian Funston and Sergei Bolutenko. We had a great battle on the target to see who would win the day, with myself finishing one point behind Sergei and Brian, after a last end one-arrow shoot off. Sergei and Brian continued to shoot-off for several arrows before Brian finally got the advantage.

The weather was sunny and hot all weekend, and the awning and couch that we had taken down to sit on and under were most welcome. Even though not to my normal standards, I scored well enough to make the Sherwood team, and win my target prize.

Andover Double Fita Star, 30th-31st July

I took advantage of a business trip to the U.K. to shoot a couple of competitions. Even though I had been doing enough practice before this tournament, and my shooting felt good, my results were atrocious. The weather was warm and humid, with occasional downpours, but generally good for shooting. I was at a loss to explain why I was shooting so badly.

Scottish Archery Championships, 5th-6th August

Second. After the previous weekend's fiasco, I shaved off my beard, and discovered as I suspected that one of the reasons that I had shot so badly was that my anchor point had been moving around. I did some practice during the week, but did not quite get the clicker position right, and my confidence in the shot was very poor. I managed to take a comfortable second, well behind Joe Cowan who was shooting well. These were my first two 1200s of the year, so even though the scores were not up to my previous standards, I was content with them.

Maple Ridge Fita Star, 9th-10th September

First. Another very small tournament in Canada, though this time it is possible the weather affected the turnout. It rained steadily all of Saturday, with a moderate tail-wind. For all that, I shot my highest 30m of the year. I nearly went home on Saturday night, but trusted the weather forecaster instead. Sunday started out wet, but dried off to leave overcast conditions with very light winds; in other words, perfect shooting conditions. I didn't make full use of it, because I was still struggling trying to find my correct clicker length. Some very good ends were marred by some flaky shots and a miss at 90m each day. By the time we reached 30m, I was so tired I had to shoot it without a clicker.

Victoria Double Fita Star, 16th-17th September

The weather was perfect for this tournament; no wind, overcast, and comfortable temperatures. My shoulders were not fully recovered from the previous week, and I hadn't yet corrected the arrow length. On the whole, I was having fewer problems pulling through the clicker, but was still quite unstable. Poor long metrics on both days were followed by good short metrics, the highlight being a 320 at 50m, and taking most of the rest of the Edinburgh University Alumni club records.