Sounds like this website has taken a kinky turn but in Archery, this is less about getting spanked by a leather clad lady you call “Mistress” and more about getting yo ass wupped good on the international archery field!

The team competition in Olympic archery was first held in 1988 at the Seoul Olympics. On home soil, the South Korean ladies took gold. This started an unbroken run of gold medals in the team category. That’s 8 consecutive Olympics where the OLNY winner of the Archery Ladies Team Gold Medal has been South Korea. This is unprecedented in the modern Olympic era and a display of total domination. But is there going to be a change this year?

The Chinese team has prepared like never before with 20 days continuous competition to select the toughest competitors they have. Chinese Taipei have been pretty damn strong during the World Cup and Olympic qualification. India is anchored by Deepika Kumari who is arguably the best woman archer in the world right now …….. yet it doesn’t matter a jot it seems. South Korea is going to take another ladies team gold and there’s no-one who can stop them.

Hang on! That’s a pretty bold statement to make with not a single arrow shot yet. Well, as we are all probably aware bookmakers are not free with their money. Odds are refined to the nth degree and long odds bets are just that ….. loooooooooong. A quick glance at the current odds on the ladies team archery would have other countries just giving up and going home.

Taking one on-line betting website as representative, it has the Korean ladies favourites at 1.84. That means if you put on a bet of £100, you would get your money back plus £84. That’s pretty much a bookies sure thing, a dead cert, guaran-damn-teed!
In second place Chinese Taipei at 4.11 – a bet of £100 gets your money back plus £311.
In third place India at 4.69 – a bet of £100 gets your money back plus £369.
After that its simply giving your money to the bookies with little chance of getting anything back :-
Best of the rest Russia and Germany are at 10.46 – a bet of £100 gets your money back plus £946. (Hmmm, the club does need a few things … worth a punt I wonder?)

So its the less than favourite Taipei or India otherwise South Korea rolls relentlessly on to a ninth consecutive gold …….. at least according to the bookies! So bet the mortgage** and fill yer boots! You can trust me guv’n’r … or me names not ‘onest ‘arry the bookie.

** That’s a joke. Seriously don’t bet the mortgage. Even our editor who is a huge korean lady archer fanboi wouldn’t do that!

(5 days after I wrote the above article I checked the odds again. The Koreans had shortened to 1.546, but Taipei were now 4.88, India 5.71 and the best of the rest to 12.6. The bookies seem to think that sure thing is getting surer all the time!)

… Just not sure I want to go back to sharing a target or being near other archers though!

More seriously, below is the Level Zero advisory from the SAA.

Please remember …
If you are an active member of GA, you know to book your slot at glasgow.archers.booking@gmail.com
If you would like to shoot with us and are an AGB member OR a returning GA archer but haven’t yet shot with us during COVID, please contact us at the following address: glasgow.archers.membership@gmail.com just to get the details sorted out.

What’s the most valuable shot you can make in archery?

Well, the perfect spider killer in a head to head shoot-off would be top of the list. Right up there would be the confidence building gold from the first arrow of any round. How about pulling out that unlikely last second high scoring shot that you need to pick up a medal or a badge so giving a warm glow. There’s even the opponent crushing indoor 12 point dot! However all of these and probably all the situations you thought of involve scoring lots of points. I have another suggestion. The humble Line Cutter One.

On the face of it, the line cutter one does not seem like a success. It looks like a total and complete klutz of a shot hanging onto the edge of the face by the grace of a waft from the air conditioning or deflection off airborne pollen. Its damn near a miss and is guaranteed to crush an archers spirit and confidence. But should it?

Known as a “Strang” at GA – usually appears when PBs are in the offing. 

Lets look at this hypothetical arrow. That ’10 points’ you just lost is in fact only 9. So its not as bad as it looked when it left the bow. Additionally you picked up that point through line cutting making that point even more cherishable – line cutters always feel like a stolen point. It might even have been a gift from a judge and outside of Judge Frank Schallmoser and his boundless sweetie sharing, you know how rare they can be!

These are all valid thoughts but the key here is in the phrase “damn near a miss”. It isn’t a miss, its a scoring arrow. Rule 306(s) Resolution of Ties in the Archery GB Rules of Shooting states that the premiere tiebreaker in an Imperial round is the number of hits. This is a scoring arrow, therefore a hit and is counted as such. You may have just dropped 9 points but there’s no guaranteed loss in a tie breaker situation looming over you. Your opponent might also have a klutz moment but NOT get a scoring arrow! Your line cutter one would give you the advantage in a tie and your hit streak continues.  Also take a moment to feel warm and fuzzy that you won’t lose to an arbitrary ruling defined in the Rules of Shooting and thus give no joy or succour to AGB’s evil apostles on earth … aka Judges** who live for these moments!

So cherish that line cutter one … it not as bad as you thought and could have been worse! We could be looking at your arrow in the wood or even in the grass!

Important: During some shoots chocolate is handed out on selected ends for furthest from the gold. Deliberately trade points for chocolate? … unethical, unsportsmanlike but so tempting and yummy!

** It should be noted that there are nice judges in Scottish Archery with a list available from our editor. However as a long time competitive archer, his willingness to bear a grudge and a huge number of line cutters unawarded have combined to make his list shrink to impressively minute dimensions. ;o)

Its with a great deal of sadness that we here at Glasgow Archers have to report that one of our long standing members, Rona Mather, sadly passed away last week (7^th June).

Rona in her element. Organizing a Scottish Championship.

Rona was a stalwart of the club for many many years. As an archer and committee member. Through coaching and mentoring. To running the kitchen at competitions making breakfast for the judges and field party. Some of you may even have started your archery journey with Rona through a beginners course with MRM.

Rona with club founder Hamish

Until ill health robbed her of her strength, she was invariably the first person you met at GA. The person most able to herd the flock of cats that is an archery club in a productive direction. Always the first to roll up her sleeves and get stuck in.  Always on or around the shooting line with a guiding word. 
We here at GA will be forever grateful for all the time and effort she dedicated to the sport and to the running of this club.

Rona receiving life membership of Glasgow Archers

She will be remembered as a formidable character, a motivator and a dedicated archer who will be sadly missed. 
Her husband Michael has asked should anyone wish to make any donations, Cancer Research would be very grateful.

Donations to Cancer Research.

GUYS! … Its only 2 households per target and we’re limited to 50 on the range!

Its been announced that as of 00:01 Saturday 5th June 2021, the level for COVID restrictions in Glasgow will fall to 2.
(admittedly I started this post 2 weeks ago and then our hopes, dreams and pub bookings were cruelly dashed by wee nicola!)
Why is this significant? Because the following restrictions change … the number of households on a target goes up and the maximum allowed number of people on the range goes up as well.

This doubles our capacity at the field just at a time when we are starting to struggle to supply enough targets to match demand from you guys. Believe me, its great to see you coming back!

Thanks to some very kind people at Hutchison’s Grammar School,  we are shooting at weekends and now on Wednesdays as well. We have taken on 6 new beginners and seeing weekly enquiries from interested folks, a dozen badges have been won in the last 3 weeks and banter has never been so frisky so the club is very much a going concern even in these very unsettled times.

If you are an active member of GA, you know to book your slot at glasgow.archers.booking@gmail.com
If you would like to shoot with us and are an AGB member OR a returning GA archer but haven’t yet shot with us during COVID, please contact us at the following address: glasgow.archers.membership@gmail.com just to get the details sorted out.

Hope to see you down the field soon. Those X’s aren’t going to shoot themselves and the spider on target 2 said harsh things about your bow! ;o)

China has selected the six archers to represent it at the Olympics. 

Wang Dapeng, Li Jialun and Wei Shaoxuan will shoot for the Gents gold while the Ladies are Wu Jiaxin, Long Xiaoqing and Yang Xiaolei.

The selection procedure was a brutal 20 consecutive days of competition which certainly would have weeded out anyone not mentally tough let alone physically lacking. One of the chinese coaches said of the trials, “they were the most intense, wonderful and cruel selection in chinese archery team history.” …….. No sh*t sherlock!

In contrast the British selection event was described as “a marathon” and “pretty relentless” with five and a half days shot out of six.

Five and a half days shot out of six. A marathon? Pretty relentless? Verses 20 consecutive days? To quote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride …… “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

I think this year everyone is going to have their hands full with the chinese, even the big dogs of toxophilia … the South Koreans. Should make for some edge of the couch moments of tension and that’s no bad thing. Post COVID archery could do with a wild Olympic shootout.

World Archery article on the chinese selection

I HAVE THE POWER!

Mauro Nespoli is not what you think of when you think “strong man”. He looks fit but there are no bulging muscles. No huge shoulders. Nothing to make you think he’s anything more than a fit and healthy 30 something who looks after himself. However Mauro has a secret.
The Italian internationalist draws one of the heaviest recurve poundages in competition today and even that is a reduction on what what he was drawing pre 2019!

What do I mean by heavy? Well an average bloke club archer will be drawing 32-36lbs. Naturally stronger or more regular shooters, by dint of being on the line a lot, might sneak up to 37-42lbs. Brady Ellison the world number 1 dropped down from 50 to 47 pounds in 2018 when he got faster limbs and felt the reduction would benefit his shooting. Mauro currently shoots 63lbs on the fingers but was shooting 67lbs up til 2019 when he decided that with age comes wisdom and wisdom was vigorously suggesting a reduction on the strain he was putting on his body.

These are comparatively unheard of draw weights in modern recurve archery where the draw and expansion though the clicker while remaining stable on a target no bigger than a cd are much more demanding than muscling though a 180lbs longbow shot. (remember radically different techniques and musculature are required for longbow and recurve shots as is the demanded accuracy)

Nespoli made the move to the massive poundages for the 2012 London Olympics where the strong crosswinds at Lords cricket ground gave him a problem during the test event. By the actual event, Nauro had upped his poundage to 58lbs to help punch through the crosswinds. It was still a work in progress as he was put out in the 1st round of the singles. However, he went on to win the team gold for Italy with Michele Frangilli and Marco Galiazzo beating the US team in a last second thriller so not a disastrous decision by any measure!

This however does not mean you should be ramping up the draw weight on YOUR bow! Nespoli is renown for his exercise regime. Without the relentless working out, he would be seriously overbowed** and doing himself a great deal of physical damage to his shoulders and back. Always something to keep in mind if you are increasing your limb weight or start to cranking in those limb bolts.

Data File:

Mauro Nespoli’s World Archery entry
Italy win 2012 Olympic Team Gold video
Video Interview with Mauro Nespoli

**note: article on overbowing and its implications

No ownership of the picture in implied. Used for the purposes of reporting and a He-Man meme.

As of the 26th April we will move to Level 3 restrictions … or in other words “Secure from Red Alert – Initiate Mauve Alert!” Now while we will get a little more leeway with respect to capacity, there’s not going to be much in the way of change down the archery field.

What has significantly changed is how far archers can travel to take part in archery at the field. That’s important because there are so many archers we haven’t seen in some time due to the limit on allowed travel distance. It’s ok for the club Vice-chair who is living in one of our containers (allegedly) but we’d LOVE to see our travelling members back. So to you migratory archers we say … Go find your kit. Work out how to put your bow together and next time we have the field, get booking your slot … We’ll have a target, wildly inconsistent weather and buttload** of banter waiting for you. ;o)

Book your slot at: Glasgow.archers.booking@gmail.com
If you are not a member of GA but are an AGB member and want to come join us, drop us an email at glasgow.archers.membership@gmail.com just the first time to confirm things thereafter just use the booking address.

Time slots for when we have the field are usually 10am-1pm and 1pm-4pm Saturdays and Sundays.

Check Glasgow Archer’s Facebook for the days we are allowed access – we usually know around the middle of the week if that weekend is a goer. The school sale is still dragging but we have a great relationship with Kelvinside which is how we are getting to shoot.

**Buttload: A medieval regional English measure of the capacity for a heavy cart (a butt). Contains 6 seams or 48 bushels. Roughly equivalent to 384 gallons and that’s a lot of banter! ;o)

Standing out in all weathers makes archers natural philosophers … here are a few of their thoughts:

“The archer that shoots badly has a lie ready.” … Spanish Proverb.

“Nothing clears a troubled mind better than shooting a bow.” … Fred Bear.

“No shot is hard to make, it’s just easier to miss.” 

“The ABC of Living the Good Life – Archery, Beer, Coffee” … Our Editor.

“Its harder to make the Korean National Team than it is to win the Olympic gold medal” … Korea Archery.

“I’m an Archery School Dropout (But, my dad pulled some strings and I’m back in)” … I’ll get my quiver!

“I shoot an arrow into the air, where it lands I do not care: I get my arrows wholesale.” … Curly Howard.

“There is no excellence in archery without great labour.” … Maurice Thompson.

“The last person that touched my bow is buried in my back yard.” … DEFINITELY our editor.

“Without archery I would have probably killed people.” … Every club archer who leaves their stresses on the field.

“Draw Shoot Swear Repeat” … Archery distilled to it lowest level. 

“It’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday.” … A coach’s mantra to students.

“In archery, we have something like the way of the superior man. When the archer misses the centre of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself.” … Confucius. (… but only after they have blamed their bow, the wind, the arrow, the archer next to them, the sun, midgies and the squirrel noisily stamping his feet in a tree 30 yards away.) 

“The real distance you’re shooting is the measurement between your ears!” … Dont think too much! Just shoot.

“Forget the last arrow, only the next one counts.” … Every archer needs this tattooed on the inside of their eyelids.

“Real Archers Don’t Need Training Wheels” … Compounders, please note! :op

“Archery causes Tourettes” … GA Membership Secretary.

An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it’s going to launch you into something great. So just focus, and keep aiming … Paulo Coelho

And finally, the most important, significant and pertinent  thought on this page ….. 
Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy a bow and I never seen a sad person shootin’ a bow.

Thanks to some stealth networking, Glasgow Archers have access to “their” field at Craigholme Sports Hub. It was originally just for two weekends but this has turned into a semi regular thing so watch out for notification on the GA facebook site when there will be archery at our field. We tend to know midweek-ish! The sale of the school is still dragging on but THERE SHALL BE ARCHERY AT THAT THERE FIELD at least as long as Kelvinside continue to be very understanding of their bizarre tenants.