Les nouvelles/news Info.E-mail 22 Octobre/October 22 1999
Important notice: you can now shop for FCA catalogue items "on line" our catalouge is now on our webpage
Greetings! Bonjour!
This is a special edition of Info.E-mail because we have a day-by-day diary submission from Joan McDonald, coach for the Continental Qualifying Tournament taking place right now in Mexico City.
The good news is that all 6 of our recurve archers made it to the Elimination rounds. The bad news is that Angela Cramer and Rachael Savage must shoot off against each other in the first round this morning.
So, this e-mail is long, but full of information. But, first, here's the news.
**************************************************************************
Voici une edition speciale. Nous avons recu le journal quotidien de notre entraineur Joan McDonald en Mexique, tournoi de qualification de Sydney. Ce journal est disponible en anglais seulement. Les bonnes nouvelles: tous de nos 6 archers ont avance au ronde d'elimination. Les mauvaises nouvelles: nos 2 archers feminine, Angela Cramer et Rachael Savage doivent se faire concurrence elles-memes. Il y a un site sur le web, mais ils n'ont pas fait les resultats sauf que le premier jour. Peut-etre il va mieux ce soir:
Donc, ce courriel est tres etendu. Premierement, les nouvelles!
1. Wheelchair Archers Results / Les Resultats de Fauteuils Roulants
2. Vote-by-mail results / Les resultat de vote par la poste
3. Pan Am collector Pins / Les Epinglettes officielles des Jeux Panamericaines
4. New Canadian Open Record/Nouveau record canadien ouvert
5. Canadian Plicy of Doping Sport & Canadian Doping Control Regulations / Politique canadienne sur le dopage sportif et Reglement canadien sur le controle de dopage
6. USA names its Olympic Team/L'equipe de E.U. des Jeux Olympique a ete nommee
7. A Coach's Diary
Enfin/Finally
1. Wheelchair Archers Results
Welcome back home to our two wheelchair competitors, Alec Denys and Norbert Murhphy. The World Championship have finished in Christchurch. Arthur Nault sent this messge to Pascal Colmaire on October 15.
Greetings Pascal:
Thank you for all your help. Alec was eliminated in the first round and Norbert was eliminated in the following one. We will speak about this when I return. Once again, thank you for your help.
1. Les Resultats de Fauteuils Roulants
Bienvenue aux athletes de fauteuils roulants, Alec Denys et Norbert Murphy. Le tournoi mondial de Christchurch est termine. Arthur Nault a ecrit le 15 octobre:
Salut Pascal
Merci pour t'on aide pour aupres de Kathy.
Alec a ete elimine au la premiere ronde et Norbert a la ronde suivante. On se reparle a mon retour. Merci encore de ton aide.
Back to top
2. Vote-by-mail results
The Board of Directors has voted in favour of accepting the revised national championship format as proposed by ACC Vice-President, Bruce Savage. This new format will be initiated at the 2000 national championships to be held in Quebec. The results are:
9 in favour
2 against
3 abstentions
2. Les resultat de vote par la poste
Au-dessus on se trouve les resultats d'un vote du comite des directeurs. Ils ont accepte le nouveau format des championnats exterieurs, propose parle vice-president du Comite domestique, M. Bruce Savage. Ce nouveau format
commencera en 2000 a Quebec.
9 in pour
2 contre
3 abstentions
3. Pan Am collector Pins
The ABAM office still has Pan Am ARchery Icon Pins for Sale. Cost is $6.00 each. Contact Su Hall at: 204-925-5697.
3. Les Epinglettes officielles des Jeux Panamericaines
Les epinglettes de tir a l'arc sont disponible. Chaque coute 6$. Telephonez a Su Hall: 204-925-5697.
4. New Canadian Open Record/Nouveau record canadien ouvert
Master man BH unlimited-Homme maitre chasseur arc à poulies: Ambrose
Fedoretz, Fort MCMurray, AB. FITA 1440, 316-50meters,348-30m. and a total
of 1262. 1999-06-27.
Junior Lady Recurved- Femme junior à recourbure: Racheal Savage,
Caledon,ON. in a FITA 1440, 308-70meters and a total of 1249. 1999-10-10.
Félicitations - Congratulations
Christiane Murphy
Gestionnaire des records canadiens
Canadian Records Coordinator
Fax : (418) 622-7611
5. Canadian Plicy of Doping Sport & Canadian Doping Control Regulations
A new standard operating procedures booklet will be available to FCA in the next two weeks. Generally, the regulations are clearer and tighter. Arbitrators and adjudicators are given greater direction and are required to rely upon previous decisions, which will produce more consistent decision-making over time. I will be circulating these two documents to
HPC members when they become available.
5. Politique canadienne sur le dopage sportif et Reglement canadien sur le controle de dopage
Les nouvelles methodes de fonctionnement normalisees sont presque disponible. En generalite, la presentation est plus claire. Elle comprend des titre, des sous-titres et des definition. L'autorite, les champs d'application, la portee et le lien entre cette politique et les autres (plus particulierement les politiques des federations internationales de sport sont exprimes plus clairement. Je les circulera aux memberes du comite de haute performance.
Back to top
6. USA names its Olympic Team/L'equipe de E.U. des Jeux Olympique a ete nommee
Men/Hommes Women/Dames
Vic Wunderle Janet Dykman
Justin Huish Karen Scavotto*
Shane Parker Denise Parker
(Butch Johnson) (Jessica Carlson)
*Ms. Scavotto is only 17 years old.
Elle a seulement dix-sept ans.
DAY 1: Six archers are representing Canada at the America's Continental Qualifying tournament in Mexico City, October 19-24,1999: Rob Rusnov, David Dalziel, Shawn Riggs and Hugh MacDonald - Men Olympic Anglea Cramer and Rachael Savage - Ladies Olympic Joan McDonald, Gary Gilles and June Barker are the support staff.
This tournament is the second of two tournaments where Canadian archers can earn places on the shooting line for Canada at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. The maximum team can be three men and three women.
Canada can earn a maximum of two places at this Continental Qualifying Tournament (CQT).
Our flight to Mexico City was uneventful (except for the couple in the seats across the aisle from me, who got quite drunk!). We arrived in Mexico City at ten minutes after midnight to a modern and very efficient terminal. All luggage arrived and the large archery target being held up in the arrivals area easily identified the two ladies from the Mexican
Olympic Committee who were there to pick us up. An hour later we were checked into the Calinda Hotel and into our rooms by about 2:00am.
It was a short night. The Olympic Committee bus arrived to pick us up to go and practise at 9 am and we all had to rush a bit to make it on time. The transportation and the workers for the tournament are provided by the Mexican Olympic Committee. The buses actually belong to the Olympic committee and are painted in the Mexican colours of red and green with the Olympic symbols on them. The Committee also runs an Olympic training centre with facilities for many olympic sports - gyms, tracks etc. etc. Athletes live and train at the centre. There is also an archery range at
the centre - although that is not where we were to practise.
In Mexico City there are a gazillion Volkswagon beetles - not the new version - the original beetle. Many of them are taxi's painted green and white, but a few are yellow and white. There are also an obviously popular car for the general population as well. I would guess that 30% of the cars on the roads are beetles. Apparently, they are still made in Mexico and can be purchased for about $4,000US.
Back to top
The practise range is in the same park as the competition range, but about half a mile away from it. The grass was only recently cut and the ground was quite rough. The grass felt like it had a sponge base under it, like a thick moss, so that when you stepped on it, you sank into it. That combined with the humps and bumps made it quite tough walking. The
park is very close to the airport with planes taking off every few minutes - fortunately parallel to the range but it's quite noisy. But after an hour or so we became quite adjusted to them and they don't bother the archers.
Mexico City is 6800 feet above sea level - Toronto is about 650 feet above sea level. Everyone's arrows were high at the beginning of shooting - about the 5 - 3 ring, because the air is thinner so the arrows go further. As well, we found that everyone felt quite tired - it would take a day or two for us to adjust to the elevation.
It is said that breathing in Mexico City is the same as smoking two packs of cigarettes each day. Fortunately for us we don't have anyone with breathing problems. If we looked up we could see blue sky, but as you looked down towards the horizon across the airport, there was a thick brown haze. When the planes took off, you could watch them for about 20 -
30 seonds and then they disappeared into the murk.
The morning air was crisp but pleasant - probably about 17 or 18 degrees. By noon is was probably about 23 - 24 degrees - a very pleasant day with no wind. Our schedule said that the bus would return to the hotel at 3 pm, but by noon we had shot plenty of arrows. Everyone else was finished by 1pm and we were able to persuade the bus to return to the hotel early.
There was no food on the practise field and we hadn't had an opportunity to buy any in the morning, so we were all pretty hungry - it didn't take long to find a local restaurant and a good meal. There was a bowl of relish on the table which Gary put on some bread to try and was soon coughing and sputtering with his eye bulging !! It was just a little too hot. Shawn discovered the same thing when he tried the guacamoli a little bit later. We would have to be careful in the future.
Back to top
Hugh arrived at the Hotel at 7 pm, Angela and June at about 11 pm and finally, Dave at about 1 pm. So the whole team was here. Shortly after Hugh arrived, there was a really terrific thunderstorm, lots of lightning, noise and rain. As I sat in the lobby waiting for Angela and June to arrive, the sky lights started to leak. We had earlier noticed the strange arrangement of potted palms in the lobby, but the cause of this arrangement soon was obvious. The leaks watered the palms!
We are staying at the Calinda Geneve Hotel, telephone 211-0071, fax 208-7422. It's actually a Quality Inn and is very nice and reasonably priced. Many of the other teams are also staying at the hotel. It is in an area that is a little like Yorkville in Toronto with many nice shops and lots of restaurants. There is a huge police presence in the area - I would guess that there are at least two or three cops on every block and we often see them in groups of 5 or 6. I'm not sure if that makes me feel safe or worried!
DAY 2: Today was a repeat of yesterday - on the bus at 9 am to the practise range with the spongy grass. We were worried that the heavy rain of last night would turn the field into soup, but it was fine. However, we heard that the tournament field had very poor drainage and was awash! The weather was a duplicate of the day before - sunny and warm, however, some of the heavy smog was gone and we could even see a hint of some of the mountains that surround Mexico City. Everyone had a good practise. There were more archers on the field as other teams began to arrive. Shawn's
back was bugging him, so we carried his equipment today.
The drive to the field takes about 40 minutes - but since this is Sunday we were there in about 30 minutes instead. On the corner of the main street and the side street we go down to turn into the park was a gigantic market - everyone had just setup shop on blanets on the sidewalk and street. We saw everything from car parts, plumbing supplies, clothing, TV's, shoes, washing machines......and anything else you could imagine, all laid out on the ground with crowds of people buying and selling.
We were back at the hotel after practise at about 2 pm and tried to do some shopping to replenish our lunch supplies - but it's Sunday and tourist area or not, all the shops were closed. At 4 pm we held a team meeting and welcomed Hugh and June to their first international team. So not an exciting day - but a productive one.
DAY 3: Well....day 3 is just a repeat of day 1 and 2 only this morning we were a little lazy and were late for the bus...which did not endear us to the other archers!! We'll make a point of doing better for the rest of the week. The weather was again great, but the day was quite a bit warmer. The practise field was quite full as almost all archers had arrived. The
Cubans were still missing and we heard that they were having problems getting visas.
Rob passed on shooting today as his fingers were a little sore and he stayed at the hotel to study. Dave was again having problem with his chin. On and off for most of the summer something on his finger tab wears his chin out and it ends up bleeding. This was just such an occasion. He filed his finger tab very carefully, but since the damage had already been done it was hard to know if this was am improvement. So he didn't shoot many arrows, in order to give it a chance to heal.
Everyone is still shooting well. Shawn and Hugh shot matches against each other at 90 meters with some excellent scores. Everyone had an early night as tomorrow is official practise day and we must be on the bus at 8 am.
DAY 4: No lazy Canadians today!! Everyone was on the bus by ten minutes to 8am. Today we are finally on the tournament field. It is in the same park as the practise field, but at a different angle. The planes take off behind the targets and the noise seems less. The field isn't in great shape. There are large patches where you can see that the water from the storm two days ago has only just disappeared leaving large patches of very slippery mud. It is quite cool and the sky sure looks like its going to rain some more. The Cubans must have arrived late last night as they are on the field. We learned that the problems with their visa's seemed to be that the Mexican Embassy in Havana had run out of the green cards that they needed!!
Back to top
Dave's chin was still a problem - lots of blood all over his finger tab. So out with the trusty first aid kit to see how we can tape him up so that he can still "feel" his anchor point the way he likes, but prevent further damage. Eventually, we came up with a combination of a small piece of gauze and adhesive tape. Everyone is shooting well and happy with their shooting. There are 17 women and 26 men competing in the Continental Qualifier, so both will cut to 16 for the elimination rounds.
There are 12 countries represented.
At 12:30 we were all formed up for an opening ceremony. Hugh was nominated to carry the Canadian flag for the event. There was a small marching band composed of drums and trumpets made up of teenagers (who could have used some more practise!), but we marched onto the field, flags were raised, Mexican national anthem played and speeches made.
The Canadian men will shoot the FITA with the Mexican and Cuban men. Indeed the target assignments look a little suspect when we notice that Rob is shooting with Stevens of Cuba and Anchondo of Mexico. Angela will shoot with a Mexican and Cuba and Rachael with a Mexican and a Brazilian.
We arrived back at the hotel and prepared to go to the reception at the Mexican Olympic Centre at 5 pm. The Mexican Olympic Centre is quite large with facilities for 24 sports as well as housing for athletes training at the facility. There was a reception with lots of food, some of which took some skill in identifying. We were introduced to guava's which is quite a nice yellow fruit that tastes somewhat similar to pears. Even Dave got a little adventurous and tried something that he couldn't easily identify. We had a good tour of the facilities in the centre which even includes a small achery range!! The guys tried running around the velodrome, but just couldn't get up enough speed to stay up on the banking!!
Tomorrow everyone shoots the first half of the FITA round. The purpose of this round is to rank the archers from 1st to 16th in order to set up the match play competition. It is also the round that is used in Canada to rank Canadian archers, so they are looking for good scores here. We'll see tomorrow!!
DAY 5: If there's a major archery tournament in 1999 - then it means it's cold, damp and windy!!! Today is no exception. I'm guessing at the temperature, but I'd say the high today was about 15 degrees C with very heavy cloud cover and strong winds blowing from left to right across the field. It tried hard to rain in the morning but fortunately it failed. The cloud cover lightened during the afternoon and the sun threatened occasionally but never actually made it. Boy oh boy - archers have definitely offended the gods in 1999.
So, it was out with the long sleeves and pins. Practise went well, but was a bit long - and the official 45 minutes stretched into about 1 hour, 10 minutes. The break between practise and competition also stretched from 15 minutes to about a half hour - this made the first competition arrows quite difficult - even more so because it was cool and windy. The
delays were caused because of electrical problems on the field and in fact, the second distance ran without clocks with the timing done by hand using flags.
90 meters for the men was very tricky. Hugh's first end was a killer, but he settled down and shot the rest quite well. He finished with a 265. Shawn started out on top of the leader board, but then ran into trouble. He only shoots 40 pounds and on a windy day will always have a hard time. He finished with a 268. The tape on Dave's chin worked quite well, but he also had a difficult time and finished with a 273. Rob started well and shot well throughout finishing 90 meters in first place with a 292.
Back to top
At 70 meters, Hugh totally recovered and shot a totally excellent 311, the second highest score at this distance. Shawn got in gear in the last three ends shooting a 293. Dave also started to shoot like himself and shot a 307. Rob was rocketing along, but just didn't have the stamina in the last two ends and had to settle for 299. Because of Rob's load at
University and minimal practise time, we knew he would not have the stamina to shoot more than about 100 arrows. We were careless and didn't keep track of the number of arrows shot in practise - normally in a 45 minute session you only get about 30, but with the extended session today, he shoot too many and then ran out of steam.
So here are the totals for the men after 90 and 70 meters. (26 competitors)
1. Rob Rusnov, Canada - 591
2. Manjarrez, Mexico - 590
3. J. C. Stevens, Cuba- 585
4. Anchondo, Mexico - 582
5. D. Weber, Paraguay - 582
6. Castenada, Cuba - 582
7. David Dalziel, Cda - 580
8. Hugh MacDonald, Cda- 576
9. Shawn Riggs, Canada- 561
The ladies scores seemed to be less affected by the wind and you will see that they are much higher. Rachael had a disastrous first end, but then settled down and didn't shoot too badly finishing with a 271. Angela's score was up and down, but finished with a 280.
At 60 meters, Rachael would shoot a good end, scare herself a bit and then be too careful on the next one. Afterwards she recognized that she was often too timid. However, she doesn't get upset, is always open to help and is able to review her shooting with objectivity and I know that she will improve. We often forget that in fact, she is still a junior! She finished with a 292. Angela's shooting improved too and she got better at commiting to the shot right from the beginning. She finished with a 302.
The totals for the ladies at the end of the day are: (17 competitors)
1. Marisol Breton, Mexico - 621
2. D. van Lamoan, Chile - 618
3. Z. Novelo, Mexioc - 612
4. Erica Reyes, Mexico - 606
5. B. Amador, Mexico - 605
6. A. Zamora, Cuba - 603
7. Angela Cramer, Canada - 582
9. Rachael Savage, Canada - 563
This morning we had a strong reminder that we need to be paying attention to safety at all times. June was finishing her breakfast when a well dressed gentleman told her that there was ketchup on her jacket which was over the back of her chair. He offered to help her clean it up and moved the jacket to a sideboard to do it. Her purse was on the table. When
she glanced back, there was a man at the table with his hand in her purse. Fortunately, she reacted quickly enough and nothing was stolen and it was reported to the people in the hotel, but no sign of the two men. It was a good wakeup call for all of us!!
Attitudes were strong at the team meeting and I think everyone is settled down and will do better tomorrow. We don't know what the weather forecast is, but we're sending vibes to the weather gods!! We got great faxes today from Kathy at the FCA and Marthe - thanks guys -everyone appreciated your thoughts.
DAY 6: Everyone woke up this morning and anxiously looked out the window to see if the weather had improved....difficult to do since it is dark until about about 7:30am. But the walk to McDonald's for breakfast was pretty chilly. However, the field near the airport was much colder - we estimated about 8 - 10 degrees C. There was some wind, but not nearly as
strong as the day before. The good news is that by the time 50 meters was over it was quite warm and in the afternoon everyone shot in T-shirts and the wind died down to virtually nothing.
While Gary and I were enjoying our McMuffin con Huevo at breakfast, Dave came in and put the handle (plus v-bars and sight) of his bow down on the table beside us, ordered his breakfast to take out and then left.......minus the bow handle. Gary and I fnished eating, picked up the handle and found Dave and Rob eating their McDonald's in the lobby of the hotel. I casually asked which bow Dave planned to shoot today.......a look of total horror slowly crept across on his face as he realized what he had done. He leapt up and started to charge out the door.....I pulled the handle out from behind my back......I have seldom seen someone look so totally relieved. I got a big thank you and hug!!!
Rob shot a reasonable 50 meters of 321, but Manjarrez of Mexico shot 328 which put him in 1st place overall and Rob in second. Rob was also in second place for the 50 meter distance. Dave was back in good shape and shot a 320 for 3rd place at 50 meters which moved him up from 7th to 4th place. Hugh shot 318 which kept him in eigth place overall. Shawn was still struggling and with a 292 dropped down into 12th.
Back to top
Over on the ladies line Rachael was having an excellent day. She shot 308 at 50 meters to move from 9th to 8th place, but her score placed her first for the 50 meter distance. It seems that Angela could only get the pull working or the push and just wasn't able to get them co-ordinated and finished with a disappointing 50 meters of 286 to drop from 7th to 9th place.
During the break between 50 and 30 meters, we had a look at the draw sheet to see how these placings setup for the match play tomorrow. If all the men stayed in their current positions, the match play setup would be good - the Canadian men would be separated and not meet each other early in the elimination rounds. But the story was not good on the ladies
line. With Rachael in 8th and Angela in 9th, that meant that they would meet each other in the first round!! For Rachael to move up to 7th she would have to make up 14 points, probably not going to happen at 30 meters. For Angela to move down to 10th place, she would have to drop 23 points. We decided to wait until the 7th end at 30 meters to see how things were
working out. Rachael was making up points on the lady in 7th place, but not fast enough to beat her. But, the lady in 10th place was shooting pretty badly and now Angela would have to drop 34 points to move down to 10th. However, another way to look at this situation is that by having Rachael and Angela go against each other in the first round, we would be guaranteed a Canadian in the second round. If we won the match in the second round, that would put a Canadian in the semi-finals with a real chance to win a spot for Canada at the Olympics. We left the decision up to Angela and Rachael. They decided to hold their places and Rachael finished in 8th with a 336, good enough for 3rd place at 30 meters. An
excellent performance for Rachael. Angela finished in 9th.
Here's how the ladies finished:
1. Breton, Mexico - 1253
2. Novelo, Mexico - 1251
3. Van Lamoen, Chle - 1250
4. Reyes, Mexico - 1238
5. Amador, Mexico - 1227
6. Zamora, Cuba - 1224
7. Ferro, Cuba - 1222
8. Savage, Canada - 1207
9. Cramer, Canada - 1191
10. Hidalgo, Cuba - 1166
At about the 6th end at 30 meters, Rob had a very bad shot - he was lucky to hit the target, but he just sneaked in a 1. That certainly moved him out of 2nd place! Again he was just out of strength and he struggled to the end of the distance. As he moved down the leader board, the Mexicans, Cubans and Canadians scrambled to see how this affected the
pairings for match play. The person we had to watch was Shawn to make sure that Rob and Shawn would not end up paired against each other in the first round. However, the point spread around Shawn's position was very small and changed every end. It was pretty frantic, but seemed to work out well for the Canadians in the end.
Here's how the men finished:
1. Manjarrez, Mexico - 1251
2. Stevens, Cuba - 1243
3. Anchondo, Mexico - 1242
4. Weber, Paraguay - 1240
5. Rusnov, Canada - 1236
6. Dalziel, Canada - 1234
7. MacDonald, Canada - 1231
8. Castaneda, Mexico - 1230
9. Flores, Mexico - 1211
10. Gaerste, Venezuela - 1200
14. Riggs, Canada - 1174
June has been making friends all along the shooting line. In Canada she is known affectionately as Ma Barker. Here she has been named Momasita Barquer.
Back to top
While we were waiting for the medals, we discovered that Hugh is a great attraction for many of the score girls (they take down the scores for each archer every end). They think he has beautiful eyes! Hugh went over to meet them which caused a huge chorus of giggles. It is even better when they try to pronounce his name - he is oog. I guess H's are difficult in Spanish!! Of course, Hugh has received no end of teasing from all of us for his pinup status.
The butts are a pain - they are ethafoam that is rolled and must have glue in them holding the pieces together. It sticks to the arrows like crazy and has to be scaped off after every end. Everyone is complaining. We got a tin of Superlube to spray on the arrows, which means they only have to be scraped about every 3rd or 4th end, but it's still a pain. We
think that we will have changed the weight of the arrows because we have scraped so much carbon off them!!
Tomorrow we will shoot the 8th and quarter finals. The semi finals and finals for the Olympic qualifier will be shot on Saturday. People are positive about the upcoming matches tomorrow. Both Angela and Shawn were shooting much better at 30 meters. So everyone-send us all your good vibes!!
The morning was bright and sunny - a little bit cool - but not like the previous two days. Traffic was very bad this morning and the ride to the range was longer than usual. However, the air was much cleaner than normal and we were able to see the mountains that surround Mexico City - one of them even has snow on the top. It was great.
I sat in the front of the bus today - cars just go pretty much where they feel like it - the bus threads it's way through the traffic with only millemeters on either side. Red lights sometimes don't even slow down the traffic - Thank heavens someone else is doing the driving!!
Warm up for the match play went well. All the ladies and men olympic shot their 8th finals first. Everyone was very nervious - hearts rates were high.
The match between Angela and Rachael was tough for both ladies, but Rachael took the lead early and held it to the end to win the match. In the second round, she went up against Marisol Breton, the first place finisher in the FITA. In the second match (4 ends of 3 arrows), she tied Marisol on the first end, but then Marisol took over and Rachael lost the match.
Sorry, but I don't have the scores from the first series of men's 18 arrow matches, but Rob won his match with a ubstantial lead. Dave also took a lead early and was able to hold it during the match. Hugh was on a tear and shot a great match finishing with a 164 giving him his first Olympic Association Qualifier. Shawn was shooting against Anchondo of
Mexico - a difficult match. Shawn took a one point lead on the first end. On the second end, Anchondo shot a 58 - even though Shawn shot well, he was behind by 4 points and wasn't able to make it up on the last end, so he was eliminated from the competition.
In the quarter finals, 12 arrows are shot in ends of 3. Rob was shooting against David Weber from Paraguay. Rob opened with a 28 and David shot 24. On the second end Rob shot a 27 while David shot a 22 giving Rob a commanding lead. Rob finished the match well shooting 109, giving him his 4th and final Olympic Association qualifying score. Dave Dalziel now
had the task of shooting against Anchondo of Mexico. Anchonda has become Canadian men's nemsis - our archers have met him in match play many, many times, and he has always come out the winner. In the first end Dave shot a 24 and Anchondo shot a 27, giving the Mexican a 3 point lead. In the second end, they both shot 26's. On the third end, Dave shot a 27 and Anchondo a 23, turning the match in Dave's favour by 1 point. On the last end, they both shot 25's giving David the win by 1 point. Hugh also had a tough match. He opened with a 26 and his opponent shot a 29 taking a 3 point lead. Hugh's second end was 23 while his competitor shot a 26, taking a 6 point lead - pretty difficult to come back from in the 6 remaining arrows. In the third end, Hugh shot a 27 to his opponent's 23, cutting his lead to 3 points. In the last end, Hugh shot a 28, his opponent a 26, so Hugh lost by 1 point. We were really proud of his comeback in the match.
Back to top
So that means that Canada has 2 men in the semi-finals, which guarantees us one place at the 2000 Olympics, with a chance to earn two places if Rob and Dave can each win at least one match tomorrow.
There were many more matches in the junior divisions today, but we were able to get a bus back to the hotel for the afternoon. We had a late lunch and then a team meeting. After that Gary and I went by taxi to a leather goods store and Gary bought himself a really nice leather jacket - it looks great.
We went out for a light super to a "Tequilleria" - the music was way too loud but the food was great.
So tomorrow Rob and Dave will have tough matches. Rob will shoot against the person who was first in the FITA round and Dave will shoot against Juan Carlos Stevens of Cuba who was second in the FITA.
So another big day!!