24 June 2006 - Interview Flash

Interview Flash

San Salvador – June 24, 2006

Emiel Custers (NED), new World Record holder in Compound Team and shooting a perfect 80. Team score was 238 pts :

It feels great ! The light rain wasn’t much of a factor for me. It’s OK as long as we don’t heavy rain or wind. Actually, this relaxed me a little. At the warm-up, we already were all shooting 10s in rows. We just kept on shooting !

Peter Elzinga (NED):

In such weather condition, I concentrate event a little more. It’s like you know that you must shoot at your best. It feels even better to shoot a World Record.

Fred van Zutphen (NED):

Yes ! Not bad… Only Emiel was perfect but we all shot solid. It feels great… especially in our new orange underwear that the US team offered us after we shot a European Record on the FITA round on Thursday. 

Qian Jailing (CHN), World Cup Leader in Recurve Women:

Are you satisfied with the 3rd place in team today ?

No, we would have preferred to win, especially as we ranked number 1 in the qualifications. We even down by two points in the bronze medal match versus Great Britain and we shot an 8 in our last end. However, we always think we can win and I am glad we pulled through 1 point victory for the bronze.

I hope it will be the same tomorrow when I play Alison Williamson in the Individual Final. Most important, I will go through my regular routine and hope to shoot to the best of my ability.

Joan McDonald (CAN) Coach of Canada:

You were close to eliminating Mexico in the men’s team event, how do you feel ?

We are very happy with the week. We gave some tough competition to Mexico who is going to the Final. We were ahead by two points before the last end but one bad arrow cost us the match in the end. However, a victory would have been a big surprise. I am very happy with the guys here, especially with Crispin Duenas (CAN) who achieved 6th place at the individual competition. He showed me this week what he is really capable of at the international level. I would like to send them to more high level competition, such as the World Cup in Shanghai and the Pan American Championships, but in Canada it is difficult for us to get financial support

What do you think of the competition format ?

Going from a whole FITA round in qualification to 12 0r 24 arrows in single elimination match play is not ideal. If you suffer an early exit, you can’t actually shoot and progress. I like match play, but then we should be doing the entire competition with it. In Canada, we run competition with double elimination format. This means you can afford to lose one game and go on with the competition. They do the same in the beach volleyball World Cup. As the losers are being sent in a new bracket, it brings some very intense matches. Sometimes, we also have matches competition when the winner would get 4 points and the best losers would get 2 points. In summary, playing more games and playing more close games really help the development of the archers in Canada.

Bob Romero (USA), consultant for the El Salvador team:

You had an intense match with China in recurve men, that you lost by one point at the end, disappointed ?

No ! We gave them a tough time and scored high, 219 pts. One of my guys told me that he felt proud to have shot so well. He is right ! Our technique was excellent this week. We just lacked a bit of experience in the last end. We were leading by two points but we started with two 8. The level in El Salvador is raising and the overall results at this World Cup are putting this team, including compound and women, on the map. I hope we can send the archers to more international competitions.

What do you think of the competition format ?

In some sense, the problem with single elimination game is that when you lose, you stop shooting. Many archers have told me that they had stopped competitions because they were not going past the first round enough times. I would prefer round robin format so that you play more games. I have also run clinics when the archers get one point for a win and one point if they surpass their average, even if they lose. Since FITA does elimination game, we could avoid doing the whole qualifications when we just add points. We could limit the participation to 64 archers in some tournament go to round robin.

Jiang Lin (CHN), Recurve Men:

How was your competition today ?

Hard to explain. We shot well some ends and not so well in other ends. In the semi-final against Mexico, we started with 46 pts only. The wind was a bit tricky and we shot too much on the right.

Didier Miéville

FITA Communication