PB and Mistakes to learn from

Indoor season’s closing

Every year, our archery club hosts two open events, one at the beginning of the indoor season and another at the end. The event is mainly for club members, but we usually get some more archers from neighbouring clubs and sometimes even from neighbouring countries. Anyhow, great event, especially for new archers to learn how competitions are organized and how scoreboards get filled.

This is what we like — yellow in yellow

My default approach is to increase my qualification points, but this time I truly had a messy time a few months before because of moving and related DIY projects at home. So, I was not expecting much, to be honest.

The start was bumpy with 9–7-M. I find that miss is always like a bit of salt in an open wound. It took some time, but around the sixth series started to feel quite right and closed the first ten ends with 217 points.

The second part felt very good, and I managed to keep on the wave until the end and closed with 242 points, which is my highest score for 10x3 series. In sum, I scored my personal best — 459 points. Apparently, painting walls built some muscle.

Another important part for noobs. In these events, we usually have 2 scorecards — one in paper, the other in digital form. After the event, I checked the scorecards to have a closer look at how the scoring went. And yeah, here it was — a correction and not in my favour. Instead of the actual three 10s, in the paper protocol, it was counted as two. And the rules are that in case of discrepancies, the paper protocol overrides the electronic one OR if two paper protocols differ, the one with a lower score is counted.

Qualification round scorecard

To be fair, I did the paper protocol, so it is fully on me :D That made me curious and I checked other scorecards from this and other competitions and to my surprise, this is a very common mistake. In this event, and at my level, it does not matter much and in this particular situation, it does not change anything, but still, this is a good lesson.

We proceeded with the next rounds, but I already fulfilled my mission, so this was just extra shooting with no specific goals. Sgooting felt quite stable and apart from one 3, I think I did well.

Scorecard

Then came the final round, and you know what, our coaches set everything up as if for huge tournaments. All gold rounds were only by 2 archers in the spotlight, with a support colleague who would do score reading, bringing you arrows and the screen with point count. That was unexpected, and it built some stress. Also, the difference is that you get only 20 seconds instead of 30 for each shot and shooting goes non-stop, as soon as the opponent shoots, your countdown starts.

Surprisingly, with this extra pressure, I did very well. Opening with 10–10–7 I did not expect, and overall shooting felt stable apart from some not-so-great shots. I managed to win the final round, but my opponent was doing well, too.

Final scorecard

All in all, great season closing. Closing, but not really, at the moment, I have been shooting indoors still, but no worries — I am coming soon, field!