Barebow at the World Games 2017. Pic by Dean Alberga / World Archery.
July has been and gone. Quieter than the World Cup frenzy of May and June, it saw the World Games take place in Wroclaw in Poland, scene of several previous World Cups.
The World Games, if you’ve forgotten, are a multi-sport event every four years designed to provide a platform for sports and disciplines that don’t get contested at the Olympics. It’s often seen as a stepping stone to wider international acceptance, too. The archery meet featured recurve and barebow field events, and a compound target event. A lot of familiar names turned up, but it’s best you read the extremely extensive coverage over at World Archery. Brady Ellison expounded his love of field to Inside The Games after the recurve sessions – but, you know, he said he was probably going back to compound a couple of years ago. 🙂
The biggest Olympics news of all was that the next two countries to host the summer Olympics after Tokyo have been selected, after months of rumours and behind-the-scenes horse trading. It’ll be #Paris2024 and #LosAngeles2028, both hosting the Games for the third time.
You will remember, of course, that Paris will likely be putting the archery competition on at the Esplanade des Invalides in the (relative) centre of the city:
A weird aside: see those two figures in the number one lane? Whoever the artist is, they *seem* to have based them on – and I’m not absolutely sure why or how they got there – a really not-very-good picture of Chang Hyejin and then coach Rye Soo Jung that I took in Wroclaw in 2013. Of all things.
I’m guessing that’s because they’re full length and fairly easy to remove from the background. Photoshop priorities!
This pic shows the Esplanade des Invalides on the right, and on the other side of the bridge, the Grand Palais where they will be holding the fencing and taekwondo. This is excellent news: the archery will be at the very heart of the city and in the centre of the action.
Los Angeles will be building a custom venue – ‘Stadium Lake’ – at the under construction LA Stadium at Hollywood Park. Dean Alberga will have to swim to take pictures. 🙂
2024 and 2028 will probably be the last of the single-city Games, as almost all bids going foward increasingly involve more than one location – and rightly so, as the 21st century Olympics is too much of a burden on the tax base of even a major world city these days. The Olympic s of the the 2030s and on will probably look something like this.
By far my most shared story of the month was about the 35th running of the President’s competition, the biggest annual Korean domestic competition; and it’s most salient, terrifying fact: in the senior recurve division ranking, twenty men and thirty-nine women shot 1350 or above, the mark long considered the definition of world elite. That number doesn’t include a couple of dozen high school students who also made that score.
Most countries in the world have perhaps two or three recurve archers who can shoot 1350 on a regular basis – if that. The sheer strength in depth – and the deep commitment to the full FITA as a mark of quality – isn’t going away any time soon.
Also, for the first time ever, the President’s competition saw a mixed team round shot. Think it’s related to this announcement at all? 🙂 It will also be part of the Asian Games next year in 2018, an event the Korea Archery Association take almost as seriously as the Olympics.
What else? There’s this rather cool bow-shaped lamp happening somewhere. The Triple Trouble oranjj machine produced another cool video. The Rixos Downtown Antalya gave us a cool, if rather dangerous-looking advert. And the ‘Hunger Games effect’ seems to have become the Game Of Thrones effect – hey, whatever.
August: the Berlin World Cup will soon be upon us, and in just one month the World Cup Final in Rome. You can check the movers and shakers who’ll likely be at that over here – and frankly, it’s going to look quite a lot like last year in Odense. You can read a little more about Berlin and what’s going to happen in the preview I wrote earlier this year over on Dutch Target. I’m not going to be at this one, unfortunately. Hope the audience tops the slightly paltry Salt Lake crowd, too.
OLYMPICS BONUSES!
Have a look at 51sprints.com, an amazing website about track athletics, who wins and why.
Also, enjoy Misha, perhaps the greatest mascot ever, from a slightly less spectacular time; Moscow 1980. Bye!