Australian Open 2009 Sunday Pt2

Australian Archery Open 2009. Sunday Pt 2.

Matchplay - The end matches.

There comes a time in the life of an Australian Junior Men's Recurve Archer when he starts thinking about odd things.

Like "Can I combine archery equipment and other sports?"

Thus, I predict that eventually all Hoyt/Easton stabilisers will in future have a small addition on the warranty card that will read something like this:

Australians: This piece of equipment is not warrantied for use as a cricket bat or golf club

This of course doesn't mean that you wont be successful using a stabiliser as a cricket bat or golf club, but it probably shouldn't be taken as a challenge either.

If you reasonably closely at Ryan's Black Max....

We came to the part of the day when it's down to the medal matches.

Jim put the cones out to define the shooting lanes and invited the spectators to come forward of the shooting line so that they would witness the matchplay in the most dramatic place possible.

Only two people took advantage of this viewpoint.

I was one of them. Andrew LeBrocq was the other. To everyone else, insert the appropriate chicken noises here.

Mens compound was up first and it was Pat v Clint shootout.

If you look at the expressions on their faces, you can tell that their approaches to the mental side of shooting is quite different.

Pat normally looks quite serious when he's shooting, like he's desperately trying to get "The Girl from Ipanema" out of his head.

Note that Pat has chosen to go with a Blue Hoyt, highlighted with yellow string and cables for this Open.

I think that you'll agree that the matching subdued colour choices of limb graphics, Shibuya Sight and CEX5 rods all combines nicely to make an understated, yet tastefully appointed bow.

Wraps this year have been similarly appointed in his traditional blue/white combination.

Pat is certainly not going outlandish or making bold bow fashion statements for this competition, but we'll see how he coordinates his choices with options from the new season catalog which have only just been released.

Clint has a slightly different look about him when he's shooting.

It's a relaxed attentive expression, like when you're absolutely sure that there IS one more beer left in the fridge.

Clint has gone with the stark white option with black trim. Very businesslike and contrasty, which he has extended to his black and white bowsling.

He has decided to play the the combination, low key with a subtle black armguard and this is where I think Clint may take the option to express himself in future.

My tip for the archery fashionista next year is to keep an eye on whatever armguard tone Clint decides to go for as it will likely be the start of something big.

When the big guns come out to the matchplay, everyone pays attention.

First things looked like this:

Then they looked like this:

After several ends where things looked pretty much the same, Clint won with a 113 to Pat's 110.

The Bronze medal match was fought out between Guy Phillips and Dennis Carson with Guy beating Dennis 107 to 106.

It's interesting to note the scores as people made their way through the matches. It would also have been interesting to see who shot what AFTER they'd been knocked out..

However, Pat had a bye for the 1/32 then shot 112, 113, 113, 113 and then 110

Clint also had a bye for the 1/32 then shot 115, 113, 109, 111 and then 113

Clint and Sean Teasdale both high scored at 115.

The full results are here

Unfortunately, I have no photos of Guy shooting at all. I couldn't figure out why until I realised that I didn't really get many photos of anyone who was towards the middle of the pack.

If anyone wants to sponsor me a Nikkor 600mm AF-S VR Lens, it would help quite a lot and I promise I'll get photos of archers in the middle of the field.

Currently they're on special for $13,840.

I'll cover the delivery charges if you can all get your act together with a paypal donation.

You know you want to.

Anyway, back to it.

Next up was Men's Recurve.

The shoot off was between Sky Kim and Michael Naray.

Michael decided that Ed needed to get his magnifying glass out a bit more, so he cunningly put his arrows very close to the lines.

Note that the photo here is out of focus where the arrow cuts the line, so Ed is putting it back in focus with his magnifying glass!

They teach these scientific principles at TSI (Target Scoring Investigator) School. When you graduate, you get a silver Humvee.

Sky managed to beat Michael 109 to 96. Mathew Masonwells came third, beating Ryan Tyack 102 to 99.

Interestingly , Michael Naray shot a 110 in the 1/8 round to take Ben Nott out with a 103. 110 was the highest score shot in the Matchplay all day.

Mens Recurve Full results are here

With that over, it was onto the Womens Compound Finals.

Barbara Scott and Fiona Hyde were going to make it a Bowtech shootout as well as the only chance for a gold medal match to go to New Zealand.

It was going to be tough to pick this one. Both are seasoned competitors. Both had Beiter stabilisers. Both used wrist slings. Fiona had forgone Vbars but had a Bowtech cap on, to break up her blue colour scheme.

Barbara was largely following the NZ black and white scheme with some splashes of red to break things up a bit.

I was tipping Fiona for the edge here. That Blue Chrome Bowtech really is a sensational colour and finish.

By this time, the wind was not helping things and was gusting across the field from right to left. You can tell that it was still cold by the number of hands in pockets in this photo.

Barbara did liven things up a bit with some pink fletches, but it was not enough against the bling value of blue chrome. The wind may have contributed a bit to the lower scores for the end result. Fiona won with a 95 against Barbara's 89

The Bronze went to Erika Annear who beat out Rebecca Darby with a 107 to 104. Erika also had the highest score of 109 for the matchplays and had also gone to a Tie break with Barbara in the 1/2 round.

Womens Compound Full results are here

Next came the most interesting (for me) gold medal match. Womens Open recurve could be an upset with Andrea Bradbrook having only just been back in the sport for six months, shooting against Dawn Nelson.

Andrea had been shooting strongly through the Matchplay matrix from a rating of 10th.

Of all competitors as a group, Womens recurve have the worst luck with the wind.

My reasoning is that they're generally not pulling the same poundages as the guys, so spend more time in the air, thus being susceptible to wind drift to a greater degree.

The wind picked up a little bit for the last match. Not that it looks like it much from this photo.

The contenders for the womens recurve crown had a bit of a rough time. This of course made it very interesting to the watching crowd.

And the lowest high point of it all was when Dawn dropped an arrow into the one ring.

I sensed a disturbance in the Force.

It was like 140 spectators all mentally cried out "F&$K!" at once and then went quiet.

If it had been me at that point, I would have just turned to Andrea and shook her hand.

But Dawn is made of harder stuff.

She just "started again".

Here's another shot of Dawn and Andrea. See if you can pick what Dawn's secret subtle piece of equipment is.

By now you know that Dawn won.

Womens Recurve Full results are here

What you won't have figured out is what dawn has in common with the powerhouses of women's recurve. The Korean Ladies.

I saw it immediately, but I look for these things.

Don't worry Dawn. I won't give your secret away. Nothing but cold hard cash will get your secret from my lips. Or my keyboard. Or via the phone.

Now, throughout this entire weekend, I had been distracted by the beckoning expanse of water that was fabled to contain fish. The locals certainly believed that to be the case anyway.

What kept me reasonably happy was that regardless of the movements towards fishing rods parked around the rim, nothing was being removed that looked remotely fishy.

While walking back to the clubrooms with the crowd... I saw this happen.

Bugger.