Thursday, August 14, 2014

Archery in Cwmbran

Playing in a mini 'backyard' Archery contest in Cwmbran.

It has become a great tradition on visits to our friends, the Kukielka family, in Cwmbran, Wales that we compete against each other in a sporting contest of some sort.

Over the years we've played Crazy-, Mini- & Adventure Golf, as well as Petanque/BoulesFinger JoustingDarts and Table Tennis.

For 2014 it was to be Archery!

With a board set-up and a BBQ on the go I took the opportunity to get in some praccy as the last time (and one of the first times) I'd picked up a bow was while playing Archery Tag in Guildford in April last year.

Richard arching in Cwmbran
Richard arching in Cwmbran

A random draw was made to decide the playing order for the six archers. I was drawn to be first, followed by Seve, Cindy, Emily, Jas and Leo.

Having a quick search online to find the official rules of Archery and the points scoring system we opted for the 5 Zone ('GNAS') method where you score by colour - White equaling 1 point, Black 3, Blue 5, Red 7 and Gold 9.

Archery rules
In both the 5 Zone and 10 Zone ('World Archery') scoring methods an arrow that is touching a line separating zones (known as a 'line cutter'), scores the value of the higher scoring zone

It was originally planned for each player to have ten arrows, but with two arrows getting lost over the fence during practice and the light fading it was decided to have eight each rather than breaking up play by retrieving already fired arrows from the target.

The very model of an Archer - Jas Kukielka
The very model of an Archer - Jas Kukielka

I managed to score a 7 with my first arrow before missing the target with my next two shots, but then hit two 5's in a row and a 1 and a 7 to finish for a total score of 25.

A high score, but not a lot of grouping going on!
A highish score, but not a lot of grouping going on!

Next up was Seve - victor in the 2009 Boules tournament and 2011 Table Tennis contest - who scored a 1, 3 and 3 for a total of 7.

Seve was not the 'Best in the World' at Archery
Seve was not the 'Best in the World' at Archery

Cindy was next up and scored an impressive 11 points and landed every arrow at least somewhere on the board, even if they didn't all score.

Not an arrow on the ground when Cindy's around
Not an arrow on the ground when Cindy's around

Emily was fourth to fire and the less said about her go the better as she scored 0.

No caption required
No caption required

Jas was the penultimate player to step up to the mark, but apart from a purple patch in the middle of his go, scored a lot of misses to finish on 15 points. Still good enough for second-place.

Silver medalist Jas
Silver medalist Jas

The last great hope to topple me and surpas the clubhouse lead was Leo - 2010 Darts Champion - but it was not to be, as he managed to score 1 point. Much to the chagrin of Emily who was hoping for some sort of repechage play-off for last-place.

Receiving the coveted Gold medal from Jas
Receiving the coveted Gold medal from Jas

To win by such a big margin I must of been channeling the spirit of San Marino's top Archer - Emanuele Guidi - who I met at the London 2012 Olympic Games!

A great fun evening with a BBQ and some great gluten free Fish & Chips from the Fairwater Fish Bar in Coed Eva too. If we had a garden I'd certainly think about getting some Archery gear.

Who knows what the next Kukielka-Gottfried sporting contest will be...

Related blog posts:
- Playing Archery Tag in Guildford
- Cwmbran

Link:
- Website of Archery GB - the governing body for the sport of archery in Great Britain and Northern Ireland

1 comment:

Emily Kukielka-Gottfried said...

I did better in practice than in the tournament :( great fun though.

And the BBQ was brilliant (rice salad a highlight!) and the Kukielkas were fantastic hosts as always :)