Martin DAMSBO (DEN): “I hope to keep shooting, keep rising and enjoy it!”

 How did you discover the sport? My neighbour’s kid had a plastic bow, I tried shooting with it and after I threw all the arrows, he took me to the local archery club. That’s how I started archery. It was in 1994, I was 9. I liked the sport from the start. I shot recurve the first half year as do most juniors, and just as I was going to buy my own recurve bow, I tried to shoot at the same target with a compound bow. I shot so many more 10s that I decided to buy a compound bow.   What is the situation of archery in your country? It’s not very popular. Denmark is a small country and out of 5 million people there are only about 2500 recurve and compound archers.     How did you train for the Compound Round and the new Hit/Miss target? I started practicing it a little bit after Antalya. Before that we didn’t have the Hit/Miss target in Denmark. I shot a little bit in the Hit/Miss target and a lot at 50 metres, and we had one tournament in Denmark. I think I had better practice than before Antalya.   Talking about Antalya, you won your first major international competition there in June. What does this victory mean to you? Hopefully it’s another step up. I have had a lot of 4th and 3rd places in the last couple of years. I think I’m on the right way now. It probably gives me a little more confidence.     From your point of view, what are the major changes that the introduction of the World Cup brought to archery? It brought more worldwide attention, as well as the possibility to have online results and videos available on YouTube. The World Cup just made archery more professional compared to the old days when sometimes you couldn’t even see the results until weeks after the event. I think the archery level worldwide is getting better and the evolution of the scores reflects this.   What do you like best about archery? I like the fact that you can go shoot by yourself almost everywhere. You don’t need a team like in football or a court like in basketball. You can go practice when you want.  After a hard day at work, I like to go shooting. It relaxes me. I turn on music and start to shoot.   How do you combine your archery career with a professional life? My work is linked to archery, since I work in an archery shop. I consider that as part of my training – I set up bows, for example. I try to go shooting everyday after work. I work 3 days a week and shoot the rest of the week. The owner of the shop Niels BALDUR shoots a lot of field archery and has won several competitions, so he knows what it takes. He gives me the time that I need to travel to competitions, but I have to use all my vacation time for it. Recently I took one week off to travel to the European Junior Championships in Germany as coach of the junior team. I don’t have much time for any other activities outside of archery. When I have some free time I like to watch movies.     Do you think it would be possible to make a living out of archery? No, I don’t think it would be possible as a compound archer, since our discipline is not in the Olympic programme. There are so many high-level archers that you cannot count on victory every time. I think the way to live out of archery is to work part time in an archery shop and shoot part time, like I or Peter ELZINGA (NED) do. I think as a full time archer you would go crazy, only shooting and shooting.   What are your plans and objectives for the future? I hope to keep shooting, keep rising and enjoy it! My goal is to shoot as long as I think it’s fun.     Thank you Martin, and all the best here in Ogden!   Vanahé ANTILLE World Archery Communication