Part Two
Weather was cooperative, it could have been a lot worse. They had some steady rain the whole month before we got there, but during the Worlds there was drizzle and overcast on some days, wind and sun on others, a couple nights of heavy rain which played a factor due to increasingly muddy trails and trecherous footing. Imagine being at full draw executing your shot and feeling your boots sliding through the mud, now that's the converse to shooting a moving target. All of us slipped, a few got mud bathes front and back.
I only had to protect my fletch a few times over the week, rain and matted feathers never came into play. I powdered my arrows with waterproofing agent on the stormy days.
The organizers thought they were doing the right thing to put all the non sight shooters on the same range. Non sight shooters shoot quick relative to freestylers, so putting an excess amount of them on one range didn't seem absurd. But that wasn't the case, and our start time at 9:15am resulted in a finish near 6pm. It was a waiting game the first day where there was no flow through the 28 targets, we would shoot our 4 arrows and wait. Start and stop. Interestingly enough the freestylers were off their ranges with cards turned in well before we shot our last arrows of the day. There were a couple slow groups on our course which created a bottleneck for all of us, rumor has it that a group of ladies barebow recurve archers were the culprit.
It was my worse day of the tournament, I was there in body but that was about it. I felt flat and tired, I was fighting some flu symptoms with fever and malaise. I managed to locate some ibuprofen mid tournament from a kind Scot and my shooting started to pick up, or at least it dulled the pain of shooting poorly. After the first day of shooting I was in 10th and trying to wake up from a very bad dream, a nightmare.
A Scottish archer McDowell turned in the high score of the day with a 311 a personal best. He was followed by the Finn, Saila with a 281. Saila was classic, a strong large framed man with simple and pure form which graced his shots. It's no wonder he holds the world record in the animal round. After the first day these two men showed that they were the ones to beat.
The excitement was thick the next morning, Tuesday. I was optimistic that it would be a better day for me, but the real excitement was that the "American", Yien had a miserble day on Monday and this tournament was up for grabs! The local talent a Scot was in the lead, and underdog, McDowell was also an accomplished rifle marksman, and had the experience to win. But the mood was soon changed to horror, when we found out that the Finnish Champion had suffered a horrible accident. Monday night, Saila fell while taking a shower and his foot jammed into the shower faucet and snapped off 2 toes while cutting his foot badly. He was rushed off to the emergency room and stitched back up controlling the bleeding.
And there he was, obviously in pain, wearing sandals and white socks. I figured he was out of the tournament. Maybe, if the courses were flat he could make a go of it, but these courses were like the steep elk country I hunt, there was not way someone with 2 broken toes and stitches could make it up and down these courses. Through an interpreter, Saila explained his accident and said he was going to try shooting this morning and if it got unbearable he would stop. My score flighted me in the second group, Saila was in the first group of archers since he was sitting in 2nd place. Throughout the day, Anttila, another Finn in our 2nd group would ask Saila how he was doing. Saila was in pain, but it was bearable, it only really hurt when he would accidently stub his toe on a tree stump or rock. ouch!n
McDowell's position on top narrowed, he shot a 264 in reply to his first day 311. The others closed the gap with stronger scores, the top six where separated by points.
Saila turned in a lower score the second day which moved him to 6th, but he completed the day. Tapani Saila had my total respect, the tenacity, courage, and fortitude to continue the Worlds with 2 broken toes. That's what makes champions.
