FREE BOW 2019 WALL PLANNER
New-Style Clubs Changing the
Win!
face of the sport
LEUPOLD RX-1600I RANGEFINDER worth
On test
£490!
Field Quivers Essential kit?
End of season drama in Turkey
Samsun World Cup Final Technique
Hitching a ride The ‘new’ thumb technique
of the GBR squad explored
PLUS
• Deliberate practice • Naomi Folkard teaches alignment
Issue 129
contents Letter, idea or question?
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Editorial Editor: John Stanley Art Team: Stephen Williams, Steve Mumby & Philip Martin
Got something to say? A question for our experts, an article, or article idea? Drop us a line and let us know. Either email at john.stanley@futurenet. com, send us a letter at the Future Publishing address below – or talk to us on Twitter or Facebook.
Contributors Adrian Smith, Chris Wells, John Stanley, Erin Prior, Dean Alberga, Patrick Huston, Naomi Folkard, Roy Rose, Alex Tyler Cover image Dean Alberga Technical Consulting Chris Wells Photography All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected Advertising Media packs are available on request Regional Advertising Director Mark Wright mark.wright@futurenet.com Advertising Manager Kirsty Reeves kirsty.reeves@futurenet.com International Bow International is available for licensing. Contact the international licensing director to discuss opportunities Matt Ellis matt.ellis@futurenet.com Subscriptions Email enquiries contact@myfavouritemagazines.co.uk UK orderline & enquiries 0344 848 2852 Overseas order line and enquiries +44 (0) 344 848 2852 Online orders & enquiries www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk Head of subscriptions Sharon Todd
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4 BOW International
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H
ello! Another bumper Bow for you. Please enjoy responsibly. As we head into indoor season, the nights get shorter, and fat arrows are pulled from tubes, it's time to reflect on the year – what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong. This issue, we have a news piece on archery retail in the UK, after the closure of Aim Archery. They are not the first retailers to fold, but they may not be the last. In the UK of course, a large nationwide row is brewing over Brexit, as the United Kingdom prepares to leave the European Union. Whatever your political affiliation or your thoughts on it, you can be assured that it will affect archery and equipment retail in this country – but exactly as to how, no one can quite yet be sure. I’d begun an article on the implications of Brexit for archery, but realised it would likely be out of date by the time you read it, such is the speed at which politics is moving as of this writing, plus it requires a great deal of research into currency and interest rates and so on. So look out for that a little nearer the time - if
indeed that time comes. Of course it's now December, when the focus is on the cosy and seasonal. If you're having a frostbite shoot somewhere, send in a pic! Feel free to drop me a line with ideas, and definitely send in your questions to be answered by our resident experts. We’re also looking for contributors for 2019, and details for both of these can be found on our main news pages. It’s been good having you with me in my first year as Bow editor. All the best for the year, and see you in 2019!
See you on the shooting line (wrapped up warm)
John Stanley, Editor
john.stanley@futurenet.com
/bowinternational
@BowMagazine
Individuals carrying out any instructions detailed in this publication do so at their own risk and must exercise their independent judgement in determining the appropriateness of parts, equipment and environment for a particular use. Appropriate protective/safety gear should be worn at all times when handling dangerous equipment. To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither Future Publishing Limited, its supplier or any of their employees, agents, subcontractors or contributors shall have any liability in connection with the use of this information, provided that nothing shall exclude or limit the liability of any party for personal injury or death caused by negligence or for anything else which cannot be excluded or limited by law.
Contents 20 12
24 06 News
The latest news from around the archery world
08 News feature
The Youth Olympic Games: a harbinger for the future of the sport
10 Shops in crisis
As a major UK archery retailer closes, we look at the situation for shops in the UK
12 New clubs: Special
Some of the more dynamic urban establishments have been changing the landscape of archery. How have they done it?
20 Deliberately
Deliberate practice is a key part of progressing your shooting. Erin Prior explains all.
24 Field Quivers
Andrew Smith shows us what is on offer around the back
29 Hitching a ride
53
35
Patrick Huston is using his thumb
32 Photo of the month The image that sums it all up
35 Samsun World Cup The end-of-season closer was a cracker
40 NFAS Championships Alex Tyler was there and shooting
44 Technique with Nomes Naomi Folkard talks alignment
48 Ask The Experts Our panel answer YOUR questions.
53 Archery on TV: Part 2 Chris Wells talks stats, stats and more stats
58 Christmas Photo Quiz Win! A Leupold rangefinder.
29 BOW International 5
NEWS
Bow news
If you have a news story, email john.stanley@futurenet.com or send your post to Future Publishing, Units 1 & 2, Sugarbrook Court, Aston Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, B60 3EX
Olympic test event: on the calendar Tokyo 2020 has released the calendar of its test events taking place from the end of 2018 through to November 2019. The archery test event for the next Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place on 11-18 July 2019 at the competition venue: Dream Island Archery Field (artist's impression, right), and will follow a similar format to the Olympic schedule. For the first time, the test event will include a recurve mixed team event, as this event will be shot at the Olympics for the first time in Tokyo, giving archery a total of five podiums. Qualification starts in 2019. Bob Eyler
www.2020games.metro.tokyo.jp
Polish Archery Federation suspended World Archery has suspended the Polish Archery Federation, until further notice for a failure in governance and election practices. In order to lift the suspension, World Archery requires the federation "to publish and prove adherence to a roadmap of regional and national assemblies, and hold verifiable and transparent elections".
World Cup series ends in Turkey The Hyundai Archery World Cup season ended in Samsun in Turkey, with Sara Lopez, Kris Schaff, Lee Eun-Gyeong and Kim Woojin crowned series champions. The win marked Sara Lopez' fourth World Cup title, tying Brady Ellison's record of four titles. Ellison took bronze in the men's event. It marked the first grand finale to be held in Turkey. Read more about the Samsun event on page 35.
6 BOW International
During the period of suspension, Polish athletes will be permitted to compete in events that do not require national team registration such as the Indoor Archery World Series. However, for international events entrants would have to be submitted directly by the Polish Ministry of Sport, rather than the national federation.
Kevin Mather. Photo: World Archery
Mather sets world records The USA’s Kevin Mather scored 1290 out of a possible 1440 points with distance scores of 307, 325, 321 and 345 points to set five new para archery world records in the recurve men’s open division at a tournament in Bothell, Washington, USA on 6 October 2018. This means that Mather holds five of the six available recurve men’s open world records outdoors.
Sara Lopez
BOW needs you!(part 1)
GBR-KOREA partnership blossoms Archery students from the elite Korean National Sports University visited the ArcheryGB base of Lilleshall this week, as the recurve squad trained with them in a joint week long camp, in preparation for elite competition next year with the World Championships scheduled and Tokyo 2020 places up for grabs. Richard Priestman, head Olympic coach said: “The camp and long term collaboration with KNSU is pivotal to our development and future international competitiveness. Korea is by far the leading nation in the world of archery, they have so many best practices that we can discover and use to build on our own competitiveness. It is a really exciting partnership and certainly in the first few days interactions have been quite magical and inspirational. It will improve us in all aspects of technical, physical and tactics and most importantly mindset.”
The week consisted of 720 rounds, 360 rounds, individual head to heads and team matches. All aspects and scores were recorded (compound and recurve) to produce arrow averages to give a final ranking for finals at the end of the week. Naomi Folkard, four time Olympian, said: “We’ve had an enjoyable and competitive week shooting with the Korean sports university archery team. Their athletes are fun to shoot with and have a relaxed philosophy which we can capture for our advantage.” David Tillotson, Head of Performance at Archery GB, said: "It has been an excellent experience having the world’s leading nation in archery on site. We had three objectives for the week. Firstly, to get some insight into their archery technique and approach to performance. Secondly, to develop friendships and partnerships that make the Koreans 'normal' in the eyes of the GBR team. And thirdly, to develop a partnership that might offer a base in Seoul in the lead up to Tokyo. Through the week we have realised their efficiency and rhythmic way of shooting. Our squad have mixed well with them and socialised throughout the week. We have managed to build a relationship between us and them and looking forward to develop this into next year at the World Cup events, Tokyo and beyond.”
Wijler, others win in Netherlands The Kings of Archery event in Eindhoven wrapped up in November with Steve Wijler (Netherlands), Laurena Villard (France), Paul Tedford (USA), and Sabine Sauter (Germany) claiming the men and women's recurve and compound titles. The event is one of the few 'Vegas style'
multiday-scoring archery events in Europe, and also features the notorious 'Nerves Of Steel' competition where participants have to shoot arrows through an increasingly smaller hole in a steel plate. The Nerves Of Steel competition was won by France's Anthony Dupuis.
Always wanted to ask an archer a question? After getting feedback from readers, we have decided to expand the Ask The Experts section of the magazine for next year. Ask The Experts is a long running column where we put your questions to the panel of contributors. However: we have now run out of reader's questions, and invite all readers to send in some more. The kind of questions which work well tend to be on a very particular aspect or detail of the sport, something that can be answered within a few hundred words. Please send your questions on any aspect of archery to the editor: john. stanley@futurenet.com with 'Ask The Experts' in the subject line. If you've always wanted to ask a particular archer a question, you can suggest somebody in the archery world who you would like to answer it; we cannot work miracles, but we do our best.
BOW needs you! (part 2)
Bow International is looking for contributors to the magazine for 2019. We are ideally looking for people who have previous experience of writing for publication and can demonstrate both creativity and strong sport and/ or technical knowledge. Contributors receive a standard rate of pay and full editorial guidance. An open mind, a flexible, creative approach and a commitment to the highest standards is essential. We are looking to expand our coverage of traditional archery, and particularly welcome contributors in that field. Note: we receive a fair number of submissions for events, however, we only usually cover events on the national championship and international level. Send an email to the editor: john. stanley@futurenet.com with 'I'd like to write for Bow' in the subject line for more information.
BOW International 7
news Feature
Youth Olympic Games In Buenos Aires, the young stars of the future assembled
A
rchery at the Youth Olympic Games is a scaled down version of the 'big dance', with 64 athletes rather than 128, no full teams, and a unique mixed event. Athletes in this edition of the YOG were all born between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2003, and are referred to as 'boys' and 'girls'. All six of the podium finishers at the 2014 edition in Nanjing went to represent their country’s senior teams in international competition. The USA’s Trenton Cowles dropped just one point through five matches on his way to winning the individual boys’ title, taking the gold medal with a straight-set win over India’s Akash in the final, after the Indian shot two sixes to sink his chances. “I’ll take away the experience of shooting with all these archers, being on a stage, on live television and shooting with some of the best in the world,” said Cowles afterwards. He was promptly named the United States Olympic Committee’s male athlete of October 2018 for his performance. China’s Zhang Mengyao beat Elia Canales of Spain, 6-2, in the girls’ gold medal match to become the second consecutive Chinese athlete to hold the Youth Olympic title. Seeded first after qualification with a score of 675, Zhang averaged 28 points each threearrow set and only surrendered a single set point through her first three matches. “I don’t think much. I just do the best I can. If I lose I don’t get sad but if I win, I get happy,” said Zhang. Trenton Cowles (USA)
Rebecca Jones of New Zealand, featured in the last issue of Bow for being for becoming the first athlete directly inspired by the Hunger Games to go to a Youth Olympics, topped becoming the first NZ archer to be selected for the competition by finishing a highly creditable seventh. Despite seeding 31st of 32 archers, she fought her way to the quarterfinals, after dramatically upsetting the number two seed Ruka Uehara of Japan in a shootoff in her first match. She then beat Quinn Reddig of Namibia, finally coming up short against Valentina Vasquez of Mexico. “I wasn’t even expecting to get this far through so it’s been really cool. I was just out there doing what I could and having a good time. I was just having fun shooting,” she told World Archery afterwards. “It’s been so amazing. I feel so proud to be part of the New Zealand team and it’s an honour to represent my country here.” For GBR, Alyssia Tromans-Ansell put in a decent performance trying to make the quarter finals, after qualifying a creditable tenth with 652, but was beaten by Valentina Vasquez of Mexico in her second match. Dan Thompson, the other GBR recurve (each nation can send up to two) was beaten by Carlos Vaca, also of Mexico, in the first round, without getting a point on the board. The mixed team event at the Youth Olympics is unique in that it pairs athletes from different countries, with the pairs decided automatically after qualification.
PYAe sone hnin (MYANMAR)
The highest-scoring girl is matched with the lowest-scoring boy, and so on up the table. This throws up curious international partnerships, and presents problems with language too. “I find it a bit difficult because sign language is what’s left and I’m not very good at it but my coach is helping me and I’m learning how to express myself better,” said Mexico’s Valentina Vazquez, paired in Buenos Aires with Alikhan Mustafin of Kazakhstan. In the end the event was won by a pair of very close countries indeed, Jose Manuel Solera of Spain shooting with Kyla TouraineHelias of France. The wider Games was mostly judged a success, although it is still not a foreverpermanent fixture in the sporting calendar, with more general long-term rumblings over its purpose in international sport. However, it remains an important test-bed for future Summer Games events and a core part of the IOC mission to bring Olympism to youth. The next competition will be in Dakar, Senegal in 2022, and will be the first IOC event to be held in Africa.
Buenos Aires: YOG 2018 individual medallists Recurve Women
Zhang Mengyao (China) Elia Canales (Spain) Son Yeryeong (Korea)
Recurve Men
Trenton Cowles (USA) Akash Malik (India) Senna Roos (Belgium)
8 BOW International
news Feature
Shops: in crisis? With the closure of a major UK archery retailer, are others about to fall? Bow investigates.
T
he recent news that Aim Archery, a well-known UK dealer based in Battle, Sussex, rang a few alarm bells. It seems only a tiny handful of customers were left out of pocket, but was the industry as a whole in trouble? It is thought that Aim Archery went too deep with discounting and volume turnover, coupled with a revamp that meant the local council increased their rates, making their running costs too high. I spoke to a few UK archery retailers to find out what was going on. Two, Andrew Smith at Perris Archery and Ian Weller at Wales Archery, were happy to go on the record. "The council doesn’t understand about margins and revenue when they are calculating your rates for the next year. And there's still a VAT bill every quarter." said Smith. It is of course difficult for bricks-and-
mortar retail stores, with both specialist knowledge and range space to pay for, to continuously discount and price match to the level of purely online retailers. "People see the prices of bows and they’ve already got 25-30% taken off." said Smith. One of the most common complaints from regular customers is not having items in stock, especially when they are listed as in stock on the website. Part of the problem is that the big ticket items may be slowmoving. "It is tricky and I do my best, but it's impossible to run a business if you are sitting on hundreds of thousands worth of stock." says Smith. "You do get customers who want to run through the shop and say 'I want to try a Hoyt, a Win & Win, an Uukha - oh, and can you price match and set my equipment up included in that price as well?' and it is difficult to accommodate them."
"We try, but you can never have all the colours on the shelf " says Ian Weller. Ian, boss at Wales Archery, is another longtime veteran dealer. "We're pretty happy here, but generally speaking the industry is going through a challenging time at the minute. There was a peak customer base of around 65,000 shortly after London 2012, but that was the high point. The number of archers in the UK has been declining, so we're all working with a smaller number of customers. 2012 was a one-off, really - we didn't get that much of a bump after Rio. There's less customers, but we still have the wages outlay." Physical shops in the UK tend to be located in more rural areas, because of land values – a frustration for those more urban archers without car transport. Notably, despite having more than a dozen clubs London has just a single shop (barely) within the M25, one of
Perris Archery
10 BOW International
© Getty Images
Beginners and beginner equipment IS still the largest share of the archery market in the UK.
the Quicks branches. (For contrast, the Paris area has seven archery dealers). Another complaint is a lack of expertise in compound archery in UK shops, with much of the knowledge concentrated in just a handful of even more specialised retailers. The biggest market is in beginners equipment, rather than the slower-moving top price 'marquee' equipment, with its smaller margins - somewhat ironically, the churn of archers starting the sport and then abandoning it within a year or two is one of the things that keeps the industry in business. Keen to find out the wider trends, I spoke to a high street retail specialist who wanted to remain anonymous. "The only USP for specialist retail now is service and product knowledge. Unfortunately for the vast majority of the public, these two come some way behind price and convenience." "As the market declines for specialists, sales and margin decline, leading to them holding less stock, so when someone does come in and is disappointed they’re unlikely to return so market declines further. Ultimately, we'll get the physical shops we deserve, unfortunately." he said.
The UK has around 15 specialist archery dealers, 12 or so with physical shops and a few more online specialists. This compares reasonably well with Germany, which has a similar number, although France, with 77,000 registered archers at last count, has well over 50 dealers, although many of these are geared rather more towards bowhunting. It is thought that the industry employs around 120 people in the UK. Europe is of course on a lot of business owners' minds at the moment, as the yetunknown implications of Brexit work their way through – with one major consequence already. When the pound collapsed after Brexit was announced in 2016 it increased the price of many goods in archery shops – very few of which, apart from the traditional side, are produced in the UK. Alternative Sporting Services, the well-known online dealer, opened an office in Luxembourg a year ago. "We ship to 150 countries worldwide so [most non-EU goods] ship out of the UK office… for now. If Brexit happens and if the terms are not favourable to our business then we will reduce this further to only handling UK orders. Luxembourg will be scaled up to
"We try, but you can never have all the colours on the shelf." handle the vast majority of the business." said owner Glyn Goodwin this week. Another potential impact of Brexit is delays at customs. If you think waiting two to five weeks for a bow is annoying, you may have to add several more weeks on to that, especially as some of the major distributors like JVD are based on the continent. Many retailers have recently expanded their operations to include wider services including accessible ranges and coaching. But in the end, more traditional business differentiators may be what keeps the industry healthy - and Andrew Smith is bullish about the future. "We specialise in service. I’ve had people drive from Scotland, past five archery shops, to fix arrows. I’ve had a chap come from the Falkland Islands. We can do things that add a lot of value. That's what makes the difference."
BOW International 11
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