Sunday - Matchplay Pt 1
With the warning of impending weather changes still firmly in mind, I arrived on Sunday morning to find Alan firmly taping the target faces to the butts.
Did he know better?
Is this the actions of an experienced man, or does he just have a fetish for packing tape guns, like most of us admit to? There's nothing like a good tape gun for making boxes. In the hands of an experienced preschool teacher, it can quieten a room full of energetic toddlers in minutes. Even the sound of a good tape gun has a purpose. Nothing is better for innocently annoying a coworker on an important phone call. You can buy slightly more expensive quiet ones. But why bother when the noise is so versatile?
Burt must have felt the need to encourage the archers in the face of potential inclement weather.
The last letter behind his chest guard is a U. It does not stand for Has Tight Fitting Underwear.
Just from the garb that people were wearing, you can tell that the temperature has dropped quite a bit.
Here is Semra doing a reasonable impression of an Eskimo.
Soon there was some light rain to put a nice glaze over the cold. I adopted my rainware so of course, the rain stopped and I was too scared to take it off as fate would decree that the rain start again.
At this point in the day, people were shooting off against each other so I was taking photos. Here are some gratuitous caught arrow shots that you should all expect by now.
Some people adopted highly technical methods of keeping their equipment dry.
Jon Campbell took it to Andrew Russell right down to the last tie breaker arrow in their match. Jon's love of matchplay was getting a good deal.
At first it wasn't obvious who was going to win as both had Blue Hoyts with the same cams, Torque compensators and V-Bars with Doinkers.
But Jon's riser was bigger, so naturally, he won.
Now I know what you're saying. How could a bigger riser POSSIBLY make a difference? I'm only kidding.
It was the red 2Dogs band at the base of the stabiliser that gave Jon the winning edge.
I saw a Merlin for the first time and it had come all the way from Hervey Bay in Queensland. Here you can see Marie shooting with it. I have heard stories about Merlins.
They range from glowing praise to "They leave these by the side of the road in Iraq to take out Humvees". Marie wasn't wearing a flak jacket and nobody around her was cringing, so I suspect that there are a few slight exaggerations involved.
Marie loves hers and the Merlin people have looked after her. I just wish I'd had more time to look at it.
Here's a member of the NZ team whose name escapes me. It's another gratuitous arrow shot.
Trevor has a small collection of symbols on his lower limb. Maybe they are there to ward off the evil archery spirits that are attracted when you put a Win&Win set of limbs in a Hoyt Riser?
Appeasing these spirits can sometimes involve making a carbon sacrifice. Arrows preferably, but carbon limbs are acceptable.
Bees with smiley faces are a close second.
Target 31 became Target 3 point 1
At least it wasn't a carbon sacrifice.
Here we see Michael Naray looking at something.
It must have been interesting.
Ryan came over to look as well. We may never know what it was that they were looking at.
This mystery will last forever.
Here is Elizabeth Andrew's riser from KG Archery.
I'd never seen one of these before.
Neither had Owen so we gave it a good hard look at.
I thought it was quite elegant.
We couldn't find anything Elizabeth uses to ward off the evil archery limb/riser mixing spirits.
She is very brave.
Here we can see padawan Mitch Lawrence trying his Jedi Mind Skills on the target while Peter Cave heads for the scoresheet.
"This is not the score you're looking for" says Mitch.
"Your mind tricks will not work on me, boy!" replies Jabba the Butt.
Here is Jon Campbell in yet another tie breaker with James Hirth.
This one is going to be a tougher shootoff as they both have risers the same brand, colour and size although James has accessorised his longrod with a wrap for extra bling power and has gone the silver option on his Sureloc.
They're matching each other for sight extension length and both have gone with the matching blue release aid.
The outcome could purely depend on the coordination of fletch colours. Jon may have the upper hand with the two colour string.
James may be penalised here for raising his elbow before Jon.
We can see here how synchronised shootoffs are still in their infancy, but are gaining massively in popularity.
An new Olympic sport? Here in Australia, we get in early for the competitive advantage.
Matchplay can be very stressful. Here Aimee is obviously a bundle of nerves.
Another little understood ritual is the competitor arrow relay. This is a highly complex display requiring split second timing and coordination.
High speed photography has captured this involved procedure between Deb Nicholson and Rachel Morgan.
Note that they are doing this WHILE WALKING. These ladies are highly experienced professionals. Don't try this at home.
Another target end arrow about to hit the target. .
This one belongs to Renae. If you send big money to me, I'll show you where it hits.
If Renae can beat your offer, I won't.
Despite the cold, everyone put on a brave face. Renae's and Madeleines brave faces came with smiles.
Sherry Gale set a high standard in the Open Women's Compound Fingernail Art Division. Nobody even came close.
Quite often you'll see various reasons for and against Vbars. Brendan Wallace was doing some product testing for another one of his innovations.
This will be popular in Melbourne.
In amongst all of this activity, people were shooting arrows.
Here we see Jaime appearing to be reasonably happy. Jesse is adopting a composed approach.
Steve Clifton must have been getting bored, so amused himself by shooting through his own fletches.
You might think that it's a fluke. Nope. That's the kind of thing that they do in New Zealand when they feel like it. Australians of course can do it at any time they feel like it too.
Just nobody felt like doing it today.
Here we see the ladies manning the shop. You should be able to smell that pot in front there, as this page has been designed to take advantage of the new scentorama .html extensions.
If you can't smell something good, you might need to upgrade to the latest Firefox or Internet Explorer. Then reboot your computer.
I don't know how to title this image. Or how to explain it.
The Open was also sponsored by Beiter.
So is Matt. Check out his nocks!
Thanks Beiter!
Someone who won't be named managed to snag her bowstring on her sleeve.
It does reduce velocity somewhat.
This looks a lot worse than it really is. I will be using a fisheye on all photos of my groups from now now.
About the time the shootoffs were happing, the weather turned nasty. You can see the devastation that happened to the club facilities below.
Luckily, trained professionals were available and the damage was quickly repaired.
Competitors who didn't perform their arrow exchanges with a certain amount of flair were given artistic hints by the judges.
Here we see Michael Naray a few milliseconds after letting loose. You'll notice that he has moved to the long wide shoelace style of finger sling as well.
It's a trend amongst recurve archers in the last few years.
Guy has gone for the bright colours and has selected a green narrow fingersling in the minimalist style, but has stayed with full length options.
This page is getting HUGE.