..and getting it!
I had a busy and interesting weekend. The Danish National Championships (Masters) in Odense.
Odense is around a hundred miles away and I didn’t relish the thought of driving 100 miles to get there and then have to compete all day in what promised to be a long competition, judging by the amount of competitors. I decided to drive down to the island of Fyen on the saturday and find a Bed and Breakfast to allow me to meet up somewhat fresh and well rested before battle commenced. The drive was atrocious due to the remains of storm Dennis, or whatever it was called but I arrived safely and spent a relaxed evening at my lodgings, slept like a baby and started the big day with a huge breakfast.
I was there to compete not just in the individual event but was teamed up with two others from my club in the team event. We were fairly confident that we could win that because there was little opposition and we even knew who they were. We knew we were better than them from the outset. The individual competition was the interesting bit..
As usual we started with the qualifying rounds. I started strongly and improved on my own personal best. After the two rounds I had done well and found myself in 6th place on the leader board. Good. I was in the finals then. 13 of us left.
The top 3 were allowed a “bye”, which meant the bottom 10, including me, went to knock-out to thin it down to 8 combatants.
This is normal and I’m used to knockout tournaments, so, I thought, all to win and nothing to lose.
I absolutely thrashed my first opponent. Knockout is five rounds with three arrows. Win three rounds and you’re good. We only went three rounds… and I was in the quarter finals.
I was a bit worried that if I won this next round I might have to shoot it out with one of my team mates. He was up there too..
Unfortunately for him, he lost his quarter final while I managed, after four rounds, to defeat the man put against me.
I’ve never made it to the semi finals before. I was feeling quite pleased with myself. The opposition was getting tougher though and despite going the five rounds, I was eventually beaten by the silver medallist. He looked relieved when it was all over. I congratulated him and wished him luck in the final. He admitted I’d shaken him though and promised to do his best.
So I was in the bronze medal area now. My opponent was a guy I’d been following all day. We were very evenly matched and scoring consistently, there were very few points difference between us. This was going to be interesting.
I took the first round. He took the second. I took the third and he the fourth. So we’re even at the final round.
The fifth round was a corker. Both shooting the best we could, we scored even points.
Shoot out it was then, One arrow and the best man wins. We toed the line and took aim. Just as I was about to release what could have been the deciding arrow, he let loose. I held mine. He scored a five. The red mist was upon me now. I took another breath, relaxed and let fly. I hit the eight ring and knew I had beaten him. It was an exciting match and we even recieved some applause.
I had the bronze.
So far so good.
So on to the team finals. There were only two teams. Not many clubs can get a whole team together in our class so the competion there is never prolonged. This was going to be quick and we decided it was going to be short and sweet and merciless. Two men, one woman on our team. She is the current holder of the Danish record for her class and we two men had done very well all day. It was in the bag, as they say.
It was. We floored them in the opening round, which shook them up a bit and continued to punish them in the following two. No contest. 3-0.
We had the gold.
I’m still getting used to the idea of officially being no.3 in my age class for the whole of Denmark. And a gold medallist to boot.
I think I’m actually more proud of the bronze. I had to get that myself.
The results stand for themselves. Our lady partner took a gold in her class and set a new Danish record in the qualifiers, beating her old record by a considerable margin. We were three that entered and we came home with 5 medals.
Not bad for a club with limited resources and difficult training facilities.
The Exile Files 