Our team is growing … we’ve adopted the Aussie team of Guy, Ricchi, Aimee, and Kathryn.  Traveling alone, without coach or team leader, team USA offered support to them if they needed it.   They can share our ‘great’ chicken sandwiches – which consist of a slice of cheese, a pickle, and ‘they’ say there is chicken in there, so that must be the case. 

It was thanks to Guy that we informed FISU that they had messed up the target assignments, which were already late – and that information caused an even longer delay.  Initially thrilled to find our compound women very close to our compound men, Guy was first to realize that there were six people on a target.   We figure we ‘paid’ for explaining the error in target assignments when we got the new assignments  with Erika, Brittany and Elissa on targets 1, 2, 3, — and Tim, Glen, and Jacob on 36, 37, 38 … the tail end of the line!  See…. Try to help out – and that’s what you get.

The recurve women ended up ranked 8^th for team round and the men’s compound could not be finalized until two compound women finished shooting.  FISU allows for a ‘combined’ team to go into men’s compound in an effort to include the smaller teams.  Combined teams can be men or women, and a configuration of compound and recurve, but they must compete with the compound men.  In order to do their team ranking, everyone needed to finish the qualifying round. 

In mixed team rankings, Jenny and Jacob looked like they would rank 6^th, while Steve Gatto and Brittany were sitting in 3^rd place. 

Unfortunately, it had rained the night before leaving the field soggy and muddy…. And then between the 10^th and 11^th ends, the rain started to fall again – and this time it was a torrential downpour.  Standing under umbrellas and tents with water up past our ankles, sinking in the soft mud, FISU cancelled shooting for the day, leaving the compound women and recurve men with having finished 11 of their 12 ends. The first two matches of mixed team round were also cancelled. 

Packing up was interesting as we struggled to get equipment in and keep the water out.  Water was pouring down the concrete steps and hillside and a rushing river replaced the road.

The storm was so fierce there were abandoned cars along the roadside, massive traffic jams, and  several of us have ‘bus rides to remember’ as the drivers were absolutely crazy trying to get around and through the traffic to take the overloaded buses back to the athletes’ village.  After covering my eyes for much of the ride, I declared to no one in particular, ‘this driver is crazy!’  The Japanese who were sandwiched in the stairwell in front of me burst out laughing as they were video taping our escape on the wrong side of the road with cars swerving around us to miss.  You might wonder if the driver would get pulled over by police – except the police were ‘escorting’ us in this adventure, so clearly, ‘rules’ did not apply.  Getting back to the village, we found that the storm had done it’s share of flooding there as well and the power was out for most of the buildings. 

The organizers were very slow to post the results and the promised electronic scoreboard that would make the event ‘media and spectator friendly’ was nonexistent.  Printouts lagged behind and I’m betting the scores were more readily available to those with internet access than they were to the athletes and staff on the field.

Jenny ended up ranked 6^th, while Erin and Amanda were 45th and 47^th.  Erika at the end of 48 arrows was in 6^th, Brittany in 5^th, and Elissa in 17^th[Updated later to 5^th, 4^th, and 18^th].  Steve Gatto finished 7^th, Zach 19^th, and Steve Schwade in 30^th place.  Jacob was in 6^th after 48 arrows, which was our last update, with Tim in 29th and Glen in 41^st [Updated later to 10^th, 26^th, and 38^th]. Overall the men’s recurve team was ranked 8^th while we waited for more updates.  You all probably know more than me at this point —

Tomorrow, the elimination rounds begin, the schedule has the recurve women warming up and shooting one match, then waiting for the recurve men to warm up and shoot their first match before moving on to the 1/16’s. 

The field will be interesting – as walking on the already soggy grass continues to churn it into deeper and deeper mud – and as I type, it’s sprinkling, with dark thunderclouds in the sky. Aquatic archery anyone???

Lorretta

9 July 2009