Interview with Tom DIELEN: Archery on Target in London

     
    
The eight-day archery competition during the Olympics was held at Lord’s, the iconic cricket ground in central London. There were four events with 128 archers shooting for gold.

The Paralympics archery was held in southeast London, at the Royal Artillery Barracks, sharing the venue with shooting. The competition included 140 archers competing in nine events, with classifications for wheelchair and standing athletes.
  
What’s your assessment about how this has been put together for you for these Olympic Games here in Lord’s?    
Well, we are very pleased with how it’s working out. We have a very good cooperation with the owner of Lord’s and with local council. And now we’re shooting from this historic house, so we’re showing our sport from heritage to future.

Was it hard to make archery work at Lord’s?
  
No, originally when they were in the bid phase, Lord’s wanted to do a sport, so they looked across all the sports and said, ‘ok, what sport fits best with us?’

It wouldn’t have worked to do beach volleyball here, for instance. And so the other thing you could say perhaps the size is OK for equestrian but the groundsmen would definitely not have accepted that.

So I think it was a good match and we could set it up in here without causing too much damage to the field.

You have an inconic venue in 2016 for Rio de Janeiro, too?
   
In Rio it will be different. The Sambodromo is really…it’s Brazil, it’s Carnival, so it also has something. Britain has a certain heritage and you want to show it; Rio, it’s Carnival, samba and we’ll be able to show it at the Sambodromo.

Read the complete interview on Around the Rings.
    
World Archery Communication