So the glorious future for compound archery as an Olympic sport has been ground firmly into the dust, for now – and maybe forever. The news came via a public IOC missive that didn’t even bother to mention the sport; not even a ‘thanks but no thanks’. It merely made it clear that none of the Olympic sports that had requested an addition to their discipline programmes would be getting them – apart from rowing. Overall, the discipline review highlighted various opportunities that exist for the IOC, LA28 and the IFs to work together to reduce the cost and complexity of the sports programme at t ..read more

The design committee behind Paris 2024 revealed on Wednesday 8 February 2023 the new sports pictograms for the Games, among several other ideas for the all-important visual presentation. There are now only 18 months to go until the opening ceremony for Paris. The revelation of the pictograms (sounds like a prog-metal album track) is a key ritual stage in the gradual unboxing of ‘the look’; that much pored-over and fretted-about, committee-driven palaver that is the overall design and visual communication of each Games – and most importantly, what it’s going to look like on TV. A few years ago ..read more

Oooh, dedication. Dedication – that’s what you need. I love shooting in snow, just for the sensory experience. It’s usually still and quiet. All the sounds change. Mindfulness imposed by the weather. The post dedication appeared first on The Infinite Curve ..read more

Official Glam It’s Thursday 29th July, 2021. An San of Korea had already won two gold medals in mixed team and women’s team. She’s paraded through the mixed zone, the labyrinth of rails that athletes must enter to speak to the media after their matches. (The rules for athletes are, you have to go in there, but you don’t have to say anything.) One of the journalists asks her a question, and is instantly cut off by An San’s coach, Park Chaesoon. You know the guy. Looks like this. Almost overnight, a story has blown up about a deluge of online hate aimed at her and focusing on, of all thing ..read more

As athletes start arriving in Toyko, perhaps you can spare a tiny thought for this man; Kazunori Takishima, who has an Olympic dream of setting a world record of attending the most Olympic events ever. He had spent nearly $40k on a hundred Tokyo 2020 tickets, saving and scheming for years. Of course, he now can’t go to any of them: And nor can anyone else. Because, on the 8th July a committee decided that no-one would be allowed to attend any Olympic events without accreditation. At a stroke, it destroyed the last hope that this Games would be any kind of ‘normal’. Without fans, it reinfo ..read more

With the final, semi-dignified scramble for archery places in Paris complete, the recriminations can begin. The three-day qualifier ended up awarding 14 women’s places and 16 men’s places, with the last individual places scrapped out among the smaller archery nations and the handful of big ones who had come up empty-handed in one column. The men’s individual qualifier tournament was eventually won by the bear-like figure of Galzan Bazarzhapov, a man with such presence it seemed surprising he hadn’t simply willed himself onto the Games bill already. The women’s was won by the surprise finalist ..read more

It’s 45 days to go before one of the strangest and most beleaguered Olympic Games of our lifetimes takes place. For 95.5 percent of us, across the globe, watching it on TV is the only way we will ever experience it; just half a percent of the Olympic audience will ever see an Olympic event live. The TV audience is paramount, and the broadcasters have the final say on all kinds of things to do with the Summer and Winter Games. For many people watching; will it be very different? With the camera angles changed to de-emphasise just how few people are in the venues (exactly how many will be ther ..read more

Image via sabakuink.net I enjoyed the positive book review from Bow International magazine for Johannes Haubner’s The Power Of The Bow, available from Verlag Angelika Hörnig (their website is at bogenschiessen.de). By far the most striking passage in the review is the quote about yaba onna, or ‘archery range women’, who worked an entertainment known as a yōkyū. One of the most interesting titbits concerns archery in the entertainment districts beginning during the Edo period (17th to 19th centuries), where archery grounds were often found near to temples and shrines. Women known as yaba onna ..read more

People once spoke of a forty year Olympic curse. In 1940 Japan was due to host the Summer and Winter Games in Tokyo and Sapporo respectively; both were cancelled due to World War Two. In 1980, the Moscow Games were hit with mass boycotts due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Over 66 countries refused to attend, including the USA and China. In 2020… well, I’m sure you’re fully aware of what has happened in 2020 so far. The entire Western world has been completely upended and no one is yet sure of anything much at this writing. In early April, the Tokyo Games were suspended for almost exac ..read more

Oooh, dedication. Dedication – that’s what you need. I love shooting in snow, just for the sensory experience. It’s usually still and quiet. All the sounds change. Mindfulness imposed by the weather. The post dedication appeared first on The Infinite Curve ..read more