All the news that’s fit to print!

The media are waking up to the fact that Rio is actually on, and the profile pieces are starting to trickle in. First up, a piece with the USA’s Zach Garrett.

#teamflatcap

TeamGB has confirmed that, as expected, Great Britain will be sending Naomi Folkard and Patrick Huston to Rio, and they got kitted out for the formalwear round along with coach Richard Priestman and biomechanical witch-doctor Olly Logan. Patrick also appeared in a BBC Norn’ Ironed preview piece:

India have selected Atanu Das to be the sole men’s shooter in Rio, after the Indian men failed to gain three spots in Antalya. Over in Australia, Alice Ingley has been confirmed as the women’s team rep in Brazil, after some selection drama.

The Indian media seem to be maintaining their familiar standards of being aggressively rude and sexist towards Deepika Kumari, too, as reported in this slightly weird preview piece about Indian Olympians.

“All eyes were on [Kumari] as she spoke about her mental preparations when she suddenly snapped momentarily. “Don’t stare at me like that,” she told those around her. “I get very conscious.”

Also, USA Archery have named their team for the Paralympics after the final trials.

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Olympic history: curious but very interesting piece on the history of athlete’s villages, from Inside The Games. 

Pic via http://www.joongdo.co.kr/

Gratuitous Ki Bo Bae news of the week: she even gets photographed in the airport coming back from Antalya. Ki Bo Bae also appears in this film (firing a gun) from the main Korean broadcaster KBS which gets broadcast next week on Thursday July 6, and appears to be a full-length documentary about archery. Watch the trailer for ‘Game Of Numbers’ here.

NB: do you live in Korea? Can you tell me if this is gonna have English subs? (I know some KBS programmes do). Do you know how to record TV programmes with soft or hard-coded subtitles? Do you want to be my friend for ever and ever?…

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Korean TV is also currently filming a young-adult drama called ‘Boys Archery Club‘ starring someone famous from a K-Pop band, which starts in July apparently, and is watchable on the web. I’m guessing it’s probably more about boys and less about archery, but if I come across it I’ll fill you in on the link.

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RIO: looks like they’ve finally finished the velodrome. Whoo! And they’ve got fruits. Lots of them! In the unlikely event you’re reading this and still wondering whether to go to Rio and watch the archery or not, it should be noted that tickets are still available for all sessions, starting from a highly reasonable 50 reals (about £10 / $13). Tickets for the Paralympics are wildly cheaper, starting from just 10 reals. Let’s hope the famed last minute ticket buyers get stuck in.

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Over at WA, the Olympic cycle is over for some, and Natalia Valeeva, one of the handful of six-time Olympians, has announced her retirement, along with Berengere Schuh of France.

The Korean team is doing that practicing in a baseball stadium thing again.

The number 2 archer on the best Olympian list is the USA legend Darrell Pace. This one was a little bit tricky to do for various reasons, but turned out pretty well. Amazing guy. Just one more to go.

Finally, you should all watch this amazing  doc about coach ‘Sally’ Park and her mission to make Olympic archers out of Malawians. I was lucky enough to meet her and her charge David Areneo in Shanghai. Very emotional in places. Well worth your time:

Bye!