EUROPEAN OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS- AMSTERDAM (NETHERLANDS)
301 archers from all over Europe gathered in Amsterdam to fight for the title of the European Champion, but most of the recurve archers traveled to Amsterdam with even bigger plans and expectations- to win a quota place for the Olympic Games in London 2012. We had exceptionally nice weather, the whole week being nice and sunny and pretty warm. The only metereological issue was a very challenging wind that continued to shift it's direction and strength.
Qualification rounds ended with not much surprises on the score board, high level archers were again on top but the difference between them and the rest was more significant due to shifty wind all day, esspecially in the afternoon.
However the individual elimination brought a bit more surprises for anyone following the results. In the recurve men's division, the one with most archers (107) was expectable until the 1/16th final when some of the top dogs lost to lower ranked archers. That's even more visible in the 1/8 final where archers like Michelle Frangilli, Viktor Ruban or Laurence Godfrey end their competition leaving quite the number of young, less experianced archers in the top 8. At the end of the day the ones left were local archer Rick van der Ven and Slovenian Klemen Strajhar shooting for gold later that week, and the French Thomas Faucheron and Markyan Ivashko of Ukraine who will fight for bronze.
On the recurve women's side of the field, story was similar. Very tough windy conditions caused some top level archers to end their competition sooner then expected. The gold medal match would be shot between the 2nd ranked after qualification round Kristina Perova of Russia and Naomi Folkard of GBR who was 8th after the qualification round. Bronze medal match contestants were Cotry Cyrielle of France and Carina Christiansen of Denmark.
As opposed to the recurve side of the field, the coumpound archers were a little more predictable. Even in the tricky conditions in the field, the top archers made their way to the finals so the top 4 in the coumpound women were the German Kristina Beger, Italians Marcella Toniolli and Anastasia Anastasio and the French Pascale Lebecque.
The last 4 compound men left on the field after the elimination rounds were Martin Damsbo of Denmark, Sergio Pagni of Italy, Vladas Sigauskas of Lithuania and Paul Titscher of Germany.
Friday was the day off for the compounds but also the most important day of the week for recurves. It was the Olympic Continental Quota tournament day. After a very long and , for most, emotional day 5 more countries had a quota place for the London Olympics: Netherlands, Israel and Moldova on the men's side and Sweden, Spain and Germany on the women's side of the field.
Saturday's finals were not any easier for the archers , both individual and in the team event. Wind was still shifty and quite strong at certain moments but making very interesting and not solved until the last arrow has been shot. However, some of the individuals stood out and showed great performance, dominated their matches and one in the end: Rick van der Ven in the recurve men's , Kristina Perova in the recurve women's , Kristina Bauer in the compound women's and Sergio Pagni in the compound men category.
All in all, it was a very interesting competition, a lot of great scores and a lot of young new archers shining. Except for the competition details it is important to mention that we , as archers, had a chance to enjoy a very well organized competiton and the best field crew we've seen in a very long time!