Aya's Archery News

Well, my mobile chimed to wake me up this morning followed by a string of buzzing to tell me my inbox was teeming with messages to be checked on a chilly morning here in Steinstücken, Berlin. Through bleary eyes I scanned the headers of my mail disregarding the incessant urging about the benefits of Viagra. One caught my eye: “FW: USAT” from my friend Natalie… forwarded apparently from a message I never got from her days before. Blinking a sleepy seed off the center of my left cornea, I opened the message and scrolled down to the original message: “Congrats, looks like you made the National Team!”

Morning is my nemesis and often takes my body several jumpstarts to get upright, but not this AM. Shaking, I opened the browser on my phone and fought with the script warnings to open the NAA homepage and read the announcement of the 2009 US Archery Team. Low and behold, my name was on the list! Where I was sure I had just missed the team by one place like last year, I made it into the bold box where the top 8 women recurve names were listed. The bleariness returned to my eyes as tears welled up. Two years I have been trying to get back on the National Team only to fall just short for the teams in 2007 and 2008.

Oh, it is so wonderful to share good news with those who actually take the time to read my postings. I hope to have more. On October 2nd I will have my opening at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum here in Berlin. I have handcrafted six scale 1:20 models of the generations of the Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer) with only 3000+ barbs for the wire to tie to finish the 6 month project. Next month I will travel to Israel as a guest shooter for a Field event. I will also research and photograph the Israeli Wall to continue my comparative study of the structure of the Berlin Wall border system and that of the Israeli Wall.

How to start this news update... On record, the Welsh have never had such a bad summer. No matter the preparation, I was not prepared for all the problems, bad luck, and just rain, rain, rain... well, mud, mud, mud is more like it.

It started by sitting at the airport all day long waiting for other teams and arriving at the University of Glamorgan after midnight with no food. Pointless to have come to Europe a week early. Then practice consisted of 100+ archers huddled into small army tents trying to keep dry from torrential rains. The opening ceremony was the shortest I have ever seen... wait I never did see anything because USA was in the rear with all the open umbrellas blocking our view. I never saw the lovely choir that was singing for us. The highlight was a Welsh Knight on his steed... Got to see him after it ended!

First day of competition, I was still in good spirits and I felt great. But as soon as we got onto the muddy course, the rains came... again. Having no rain in California, I had not experienced my nocks pulling out of the arrows... and from there on, it was like a practical joke was being played on me. Every target I shot 10 or 11 points from the 18 possible. Every target! The easy ones, the hard ones, I could not shoot better than 3's and 4's. I did not shoot one single 6 (X-ring) the entire day! Yet I never missed the target... Even at 15 meters on a 40cm target, I could not hit the center gold ring. I just shook my head. My sight marks were doing the opposite as they would normally in the rain and it was just to finish the course and hope to fix the problem before the second day.

Well, there was no second day. It was cancelled because the course was too treacherous and some archers were injured. There went my chance to make a comeback as I was in 17th and the cut to the eliminations is 16. As the top US recurve woman, I knew my best chance for a medal was shooting with world class compound, Jamie Van Natta and barebow, Rebecca Nelson-Harris. But that never happened either. The team round was cancelled to make way for make-up of the second day... 12 targets, not 24.

With only 20m targets in the practice area, it was not possible to get sight marks. My 4th World Field and I have never seen a practice range without all the distances… just my luck again. So, it turned out to be a big guessing game on the first arrow of each target. Of course, to add to the misery, my bow grip split in two just before starting… Thanks to Team Finland for the duck tape that kept it together.

Half way through, I got a better idea of my marks and started to shoot well... but it was too late, 12 targets were done with no possibility to gain on competitors ahead of me and I finished in 17th. No elimination round. No team round. No chance for a spot at the World Games… That ends this World Championship. The first time in 4 years I have been truly healthy and I turn out the lowest performance ever with no elimination or team round. Sorry Team USA…