Tabla de contenidos para Issue 166 en Bow International

Welcome to 2023! You may or may not be hoping that this year won’t look very much like 2022; a mixed bag on many fronts for your editor and a continuation of pandemic upheaval in many ways. We also have an extremely busy year for the international sport side of things coming up and we hope to be with you all the way. Bow took an extremely inspiring trip to Taiwan in December, and we’ve brought you as much as we can in the following pages. We have interviews with two of the most successful women of 2022; Gaby Schloesser and Cinzia Noziglia. There’s another deep-dive feature from James Park detailing the difference between drag and lift. Kristina Dolgilevica took her adventures in Korean traditional archery (KTA) to the next…

The 2023 International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) World Games is the largest high-level international event for athletes with a visual impairment. The Games will be held at the University of Birmingham and nearby in August 2023, and is set to attract over 1,700 athletes and their support staff. For VI archery, the sight classifications are B1, B2 and B3. B1 athletes must wear a blindfold at all times. Uniquely, archery has category known as VI Open which incorporates participants who would normally be categorised as B4 or B5. For archery, participants must be registered blind or partially sighted and be able to show their current certification at events and competitions, as required. More information is available at ibsagames2023.co.uk…

World Archery has reported that TV and digital broadcasts of the 2022 Hyundai Archery World Cup reached more than 147 million people across the world, with social media impressions topping 180 million according to an independent report by data agency IRIS. Over 1,500 hours of coverage were shown by broadcast partners and rightsholders during the season, an increase of 60% in 2021 (the Olympic Games is not included in the 2021 figures, as broadcast rights are sold separately.) Recently there has been growing popularity in the sport in countries such as China, India, Taiwan and Türkiye. After Mete Gazoz’s history-making win at the Olympic Games in Tokyo last year, the Turkish national broadcaster TRT picked up the World Cup rights for 2022. In Korea and other south Asian territories, SPOTV…

The return of Archery GB’s National Indoor weekend, at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire, took place on the 3 and 4 of December this year. The National Indoor Championship titles were competed for on the Saturday, with the Back2Back and Junior National Championships taking place on the Sunday. This edition of Archery GB's Indoor Championship weekend included, for the first time, the 50-plus categories for recurve and compound in the medal table. The championship title is awarded from a qualification round, followed by elimination matches. Unlike other countries, Great Britain does not require a qualification to shoot at the event, and it is open to any Archery GB member to shoot and compete for the title. RECURVE WOMEN As Great Britain’s newest prodigy, Penny Healey started her weekend on her usual…

In October 2022, Italy’s Cinzia Noziglia was named the World Games’ athlete of the month not long after her victory at the World Archery Field Championships in Yankton. This completed a field archery ‘Triple Crown’ of the World Games title, the World 3D title and the World Field Championship title in the same year. Cinzia also seeded first in each competition, cementing an extraordinary dominance in her discipline. The world field title had eluded her previously, and she had already collected silver and bronze individual medals. Now 38 years old, Cinzia took her first international barebow medal in 2014. Since 2018, she has had her career further developed by being part of the Fiamme Oro (Golden Flames), the sport wing of the Italian federal police. In Italy and several other…

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I returned to Korea to put my skills to the test in competition. Here, I finally achieved my goal of representing my club and Seoul city on Korean soil, impressed with my shooting form, led the scoreboard, got a prize medal and became the first western female to formally take part in the District and the Korean Traditional Archery (KTA Women’s National Championships. I will not go into the depths of history here, nor discuss the informal competitions (games); information on those is readily available in Professor Thomas Duvernay’s book on KTA. My aim is to provide an insight into the experience of being involved in a formal, traditionally run competition. It is a uniquely Korean world, with its own pace and rules, one where westerners don’t usually go. FORMAL…

World Archery has announced the upcoming hosts for the World Cup circuit for the next four years. In the truncated 2024 season, the tour will stop in Shanghai, Yecheon (in South Korea) and Antalya (in Turkey). The latter stage will host the final qualifier for the upcoming Olympics in Paris next year. The stages in the 2025 to 2027 season will take place in Haines City, in Florida (USA), Shanghai, Antalya and Madrid. As usual, the location for the season-closing World Cup Final will be announced at a later date. In a busy calendar for the international circuit, this year’s stages include stops in Antalya, Shanghai and Paris with a final in the Mexican city of Hermosillo. One stop has yet to be determined. The World Championships are also due…

National judges with at least two years’ experience willing to become continental judges are invited to attend a seminar on 10 to 11 April 2023 in Adelaide, Australia. Any qualified judges interested to attend should contact World Archery Oceania’s judges’ coordinator Brian Hagaman (officials@worldarcheryoceania.org) as soon as possible. Participants from other continents must ensure that the results of the seminar in Oceania be recognised by their judges’ committees to grant them the title of continental judges.…

Win & Win has continued to plough its own path through the professional recurve archery world, with its own focus on how to solve and minimise the perennial issues facing manufacturers and archers alike. In recent years, its archery brand line has been renamed WIAWIS, which is an acronym for ‘Winning Action, Winning Spirit’. (You may or may not know they also make high-end carbon road cycles under the same brand name). Last year it brought out its META-DX riser, the latest evolution of a long line of curvy carbon risers. For the first time, the top-of-the-line offering included the EHS Harmonic Damper, a product developed and supplied by the American compound manufacturer Mathews. The success of the META-DX led Win & Win to incorporate the dampers into its distinctive…

The Taipei leg of the indoor worlds saw the debut of some brand-new technology solutions for the sport – neither of which had ever been seen before at an archery event. Out on the field, an extraordinary virtual reality (VR) broadcast system had been installed by event sponsor Funique. Once you donned the headset, it gave you a full 360-degree view of the shooting hall from two selectable positions, both looking at the targets and looking back towards the archers – with full stereo sound in each case. In each case, graphical overlays appear on the screen inside the 3D world, keeping you up to date with scores, or showing the targets in individual detail. The system, which uses four separate cameras for each scene, was devised for use at…

Gabriela Schloesser (née Bayardo) is a Dutch recurve archer. Born in Mexico, she competed for Mexico before 2016, and has represented the Netherlands since 2017 after marrying the Dutch compound international Mike Schloesser. In 2019 she became the first Dutch recurve woman to win an Olympic spot since 1996 and went on to win an Olympic silver medal in the mixed team event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with Steve Wijler. At the end of 2022, she went on a tear around the indoor circuit, winning the Kings of Archery event in the Netherlands, the GT Open in Luxembourg and the Taiwan Indoor Open – despite not really having much history with indoor competition. As she says: “Every year is a new challenge, and last year the challenge was to…

RESOLUTIONS – DON’T BOTHER There is abundant evidence to suggest that New Year’s Resolutions (there, I’ve grandiosely capitalised them) simply don’t work. There are many reasons why. One reason is that people may set goals that are too ambitious or unrealistic, which can be discouraging if they are not achieved. Another is that people may not have a clear plan for how to achieve their goals or they may not track their progress, which can make it difficult to stay motivated. Additionally, people may not have strong enough personal motivation or support from others to help them stay on track. As well as all that, people may encounter unexpected challenges or setbacks that make it difficult to stick to their resolutions. More generally, it’s an difficult time of the year…

Being a top-level archer entails certain responsibilities and duties that go beyond straightforward competitive performance. One of these is to know how to be an ambassador of the sport, helping to bring as many people as possible to the discipline. Cinzia recently had to do this in a very public way; in past months she has been called upon to participate in popular television programmes such as Italia's Got Talent and, subsequently, in a well-known programme on the Rai One channel, I Soliti Ignoti (which roughly translates as ‘the usual suspects’). In both cases, her television appearance gained a lot of interest in archery because of Cinzia's ability to promote the sport very naturally, for which she has been widely praised on social media. It's a demonstration of the massive…

It has been reported that the winner of the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games, Luann Ryon, passed away at the end of November. She is the last American archer to win an individual Olympic medal at the Games. She shot Olympic records at the time for the 1440 FITA round (with 1282) and double 1440 round (with 2499). It was reported that the last event she competed at was the 1983 World Archery Championships on home soil in Los Angeles.…

Penny Healey of Great Britain broke the recurve women’s under-18 world record for the 60-arrow 18m round, after scoring 594 points during qualifying in the British indoor championships at Stoneleigh in December 2022. The record is subject to ratification and is one point more than the previous world mark set by the USA’s Casey Kaufhold in 2020. “I’m ecstatic. It’s been my goal since indoors started again and this was my very last chance to get it,” said Penny. “I changed my mental programme on Thursday and it’s just worked.” Healey went on to win the competition. Penny now holds both the indoor and outdoor qualifying round world records in the recurve women’s under-18 category. She shot 687 for the 72-arrow 60m format in September to take the outdoor record…

It was a long time coming, but finally, it very much happened. The inaugural Taipei Archery Open, the first major tournament for a decade from one of the sport’s dominant Asian nations, felt like the start of something. While it’s been in the works for some time, the organisers whipped the tournament together in just three months after a lastminute green light, partly because of the biggest and most problematic issue of all; Taiwan has had some of the strictest COVID regulations in the world, and only reopened the borders to foreigners fully in October. The organisation, however, was impeccable on all fronts. Despite the tight schedule, this had been long in the planning, and part of a broader strategy to promote the sport and increase public interest. As the…

In the first part of this ‘how to’ series, we will be looking at the various processes that shafts have to go through before they can be used to make a set of final arrows. We’ll call this shaft preparation. Remember the old saying, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail?” This is very true of arrow building. Ultimately, the success of the end product will be a direct representation of how well we prepare from the start and how much patience and application we give the project. Getting a good bond on vanes, points, pins and anything else glued in or on the shaft requires the surfaces to be squeaky clean. A good tip before you start is to invest in some latex gloves to stop the transfer of oil…

The kettlebell is a cast iron ball with a handle that is versatile in nature, and highly effective when used correctly. It can be used to improve strength, conditioning, speed, mobility and power. It’s been around for literally millennia, but has more recently become a fixture of athletic programmes and gym exercises. It’s well known that most home gym equipment is gathering dust within weeks, but the kettlebell is the perfect piece of equipment to have in the house with minimal storage required. It suits any individual who struggles with getting to the gym, or anyone who prefers working out in the comfort of their own home. With the weight of a kettlebell ranging from 2kg up to 50kg, this piece of equipment can be adapted into any training programme…

An arrow’s centre of mass (CoM) is its balance point. Usually this will be forward of the centre of the shaft, due to the point being a significant portion of the arrow’s mass. Heavier points mean that the CoM is further forward. An arrow also has a centre of pressure (CoP) or aerodynamic centre. This is the place on the arrow where the aerodynamic pressures are balanced. Usually this will be rear of the centre of the shaft, because of the aerodynamic properties of the fletches. For any practical arrow, the CoM is in front of the CoP. If the CoM was behind the CoP, the arrow would turn around after leaving the bow and fly nock first. The masses of each part of the arrow (point, shaft, fletches and…

In issue 159, shortly after the last Winter Olympics, Bow’s Last Word column discussed curling. After many decades of high-level achievement, and a few near misses, the GB men’s team took silver and the women’s team took gold on the last days of the Beijing Games in 2021. Almost all the curling rinks in the UK are in Scotland and all our elite curlers are Scottish. It seems perhaps surprising, but until 2017 there was no central facility for elite curling and the elite programmes had been spread out across multiple rinks across Scotland. The establishment of a National Curling Academy in Stirling finally happened in 2017, which brought all programmes and the public together in a state-of-the-art facility. The academy, funded with both private and public money, was cited…