|
|
We just got back
from a lovely walk along the river, into town. It’s a beautiful, warm
evening and we needed to decompress I think. Today the elimination rounds
began for the majority of archers, but it was the grand finale for the
visually impaired archers.
I
again spent the morning in our room relaxing, uploading my journal and
reading. Courtney came and got me around 11:00 and I got to watch Jerry
shoot his elimination and then Jeff. Jerry lost his match. He said he
adjusted his sight the wrong direction. That can happen when you get put
under that kind of stress. Jeff won his match and goes into the semifinals
tomorrow. Russell and Jonathan also made it through their matches and move
on to the semifinals.
After
lunch, peanut butter and jelly again, we took a team picture and then I
decided I wanted to practice some before my semifinal match. We went to the
practice field where they were supposed to have a target set at 30 meters for
the VI archers. It had been there earlier, but now they had moved it back to
70 meters. Courtney had to really push them to move it back for me. They
said I would have to wait until 2:00 and my match was at 3:00. That was
really frustrating because I really wanted to take my time warming myself
up. Anyway, I got about a half of an hour in and did okay, but not as well
as I had hoped. We then moved over to the area where the match would be
held. We had to wait until the other elimination matches were done and then
it was time for my semifinal match against Ruben from Belgium. We were allowed two, 2 minute ends to sight in and then the match began. Since I was
ranked #2, I got to choose who started off. I chose to shoot first in the
head to head competition. The buzzer went off and I had 30 seconds to shoot
an arrow. That is plenty of time to shoot one arrow. I shot and then Ruben
had two minutes to shoot his arrow. It went like that until each of us had
shot 3 arrows. Then the buzzer went off and they scored that end. We did
that four times. I did not do well at all. Just couldn’t get my game
together. Ruben beat me and then was able to move on to the gold medal
round. Ruben did very well, but lost to Massimiliano and so gold went to
Massimiliano, silver to Ruben and bronze to me. I will say that my only
regret is that I shot so poorly, not that I came in third. Ruben held it
together and shot a great match. I just wish I had been able to make a
better showing. I didn’t demonstrate what I am capable of and that’s
frustrating and disappointing. I hope I will be back in two years to do it
all again.
Tomorrow
are the quarter and semifinals for the other categories. Courtney and I will
be at the field first thing to cheer them on.
|
|
