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| What a difference a little dedication can make A collegiate archer, Kristine Ehrich of the University of A at Austin, has been an archer for just a few years. She's been a compound archer since I met her, but this last season she started shooting barebow. Her innate ability really showed when during the 118th NArchival Archery National Target Championship this last week, she shattered record after record in her quest for excellence. Tom Parrish deserves some credit as her coach, but Christine is the reason that NINE out of TEN existing records in female senior barebow archery fell. I had the pleasure of assisting in scoring on her target for a few of the rounds, and she was really "on" with her shooting but you could not have guessed from her attitude which was just as positive and happy as it always is. I had no idea just how good her performance really was at the time, till I heard how many records she now owns. Wow. Kristine was the mother hen/coordinator for the recent Collegiate World Team Championships held in Bangkok, Thailand. (see her writeup below) She was instrumental in helping to acquire funding for these lay-about college students who suddenly discovered they had to travel half-way around the globe, and didn't have "boo" in travel funds to begin their journey with. She's written up their travails and experiences, and I'm pleased to include them in the next article (below) of this newsletter. Kristine is a special person in many ways, let alone archery. I'm also including pictures and input from Chris Shull, one of our premier recurve male archers. Chris, like Vic Wunderle, has the presence and awareness of what his position as one of America's best archers obligates him to - always courteous and willing to relate to the young archers who approach him as well as the old. Between these archers, Kristine, Vic, Chris, and the others, I feel sure that the present and future of archery is in good hands. Future editions of the NAA's official magazine, Archery Focus will have Chris' writeups of the event.  Kristine at the A Shootout, 2001, in College Station |
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| Collegiate World Team Championships, Bangkok, Thailand Editor's preface: Kristine has submitted a text that I could not find ONE misspelling in, not one. THAT alone is remarkable, compared to what I see commonly among youth (and myself) today! As you read this story, I promise you will find it extremely well composed and written, not to mention entertaining and informative. Way to go, Kristine!   I promised that I would extract from the collegiate archers a writeup of their experience if you would only help them to "stand the line" for the US. A couple months ago, these collegiate archers (as young folks are wont to do) woke up in a whole new world and discovered that they were able to represent the USA in an word-class archery tournament in Bangkok, Thailand if only they could manage to get there first. If you went through college on a shoe-string budget, you know how daunting a sudden 2000 dollar airline ticket would seem! We appealed to you in this newsletter, and MANY, many of you responded with donations to help them get there (and back, of course:). They made the trip. They kicked some major collegiate butt. They did well, in other words. Kristine, in between shattering the long-standing records as a barebow archer at the NArchival Archery Nationals, came through with her promise to write us something about the experience! Here begins her story: Report on the 4th World University Archery Championships This is a short report of some of our experiences and the results of the tournament. On one hand, since this was my first opportunity to be team leader for an archery event, I don't have much experience when I say this was quite a successful trip, however, on the other hand, I do follow the teams closely in their ventures around the world and think that I have some credence in stating our overall success. We did GRRrrrreat!Chonburi, ThailandJuly 9-13, 2002 All 12 athletes and 3 staff members met at the airport in Seattle. We then flew from Seattle to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bangkok and on the return the flights were Bangkok to Tokyo, Tokyo to LAX, LAX to hometown airport (perhaps with another connection in the middle of that one). There seemed to be only one incident of concern on the way to Seattle. We all know that airport security has increased since 9/11, and I think that is a good thing - however, there are definite limits as to what should be questioned. One of the archers packed his release in his carry-on bag and, although we know full well that it would cause no danger, it seemed to cause concern for the airport personnel. He tried to explain to security what it was and what it was used for, but they only were interested in "what it COULD be used foruh, yeahthat would be Anyway, he was required to check it at the door to the plane and we were assured it would arrive in Bangkok with the rest of our luggage - as it did. Lesson: Pack your release in your checked luggage. The rest of the trip over to Bangkok was uneventful. We arrived at the Bangkok airport at 11pm on July 8th and were immediately greeted by our liaison, Ning, who is a third year English major at Burapha University (where the Championships were held). It was wonderful to be assigned a liaison all our own as the USA team kept her quite busy. Ning led us through customs and to getting our luggage and equipment. We loaded the bus to travel to Chonburi (about a two hour drive from Bangkok). Although everything fit, the actual loading took a bit longer than anticipated and required some special maneuvering. It seems that they were not quite prepared for exactly how much equipment 12 archers would have! Of course, although it probably only took 30 minutes to load the bus, it felt like much longer since everyone was tired and HOT - even though it was midnight! I can nearly guarantee you one thing: the archers who went on this trip will not soon be complaining about the hot and humid weather in A or in any part of the US, for that matter. We were soon to find out that the heat and humidity of that night at the airport in Bangkok was nothing compared to the heat and humidity during the day! On the ride to Chonburi, Ning gave us some literature on the area, an updated schedule of events and answered any questions that we had. We arrived at the hotel around 2am and were welcomed with fresh coconut milk alongside our room keys and our meal tickets for the upcoming day. Three meals a day, buffet style, were provided at the hotel. July 9th was an un-official practice day and we used the practice field at the University from 2-5pm. There was no bottled water available on the practice field that day, but our liaison quickly took care of that by going to the local 7-Eleven and buying two liters of water for each person on our team. We returned to the hotel following practice and went to dinner, which consisted of seafood stews and chicken dishes over rice, lots of fresh fruit, fresh baked dinner rolls and much bottled water. I can't give you a true idea of how much water we went through in a week - literally hundreds and hundreds, easily approaching a thousand of bottles of water! More on that later... July 10th was official practice and opening ceremonies day. Recurve women and compound men practiced in the morning with recurve men and compound women in the afternoon. We were scheduled to ride in a bus with all of the other teams to and from the hotel/competition field, but I talked with our liaison on the first day and explained that we really wanted to get to the field sooner than they had planned for the rest of the competitors (they had planned to leave the hotel 15 minutes before official practice began) so they arranged for there to be two vans that were dedicated only to the US team. They transported us from the hotel to the competition field and back each day. (editor's note: way to go, Kristine!) Practice went smoothly and although it was very hot and very humid, everyone seemed to stay well hydrated. We likely weren't quite staying as well hydrated as we thought, since as we poured it in, it poured out in sweat. But - everyone was feeling well and no one became ill. Towards the end of the day one of the security officers came and explained to us that we (the US team) needed to be sure and stick together throughout the week - making sure that people didn't go off on their own and stray from the group. They were quite concerned for our safety and had assigned a special police force whose duty was to protect our team. We held a team meeting that evening explaining the importance of this to the athletes and they seemed to understand it quite well. Opening ceremonies were very nice and entertaining, although long (over 2 hours) and we all were anxious to leave the field by the end. There was a 'welcome dinner' that evening at a nearby resort hotel with much traditional Thai food served. We arrived home by 10pm that evening ready to prepare for the start of competition the next day. July 11th was the qualification round (72 arrows at 70 meters) for all competitors. As you can see, we did quite well in the ranking round. The results of the US team are as follows: Men's Recurve: RankName1st half/rank2nd halfScoreHits10'sX's 4Vic Wunderle324 /3324 /564872213 6Chris Shull310 /12326 /363672177 13Guy Krueger307 /15315 /1162272155 Women's Recurve: RankName1st half/rank2nd halfScoreHits10'sX's 13Ashley Kamuf301 /12298 /1359972152 14 Lorinda Cohen298 /14297 /155957253 16Dawn Chudy301 /13290 /175917195 Men's Compound: RankName1st half/rank2nd halfScoreHits10'sX's 1Adam Wheatcroft345 /1343 /2688724114 6Caleb Heller339 /2327 /8666723511 15Eric Zahn327 /11317 /1864472209 Women's Compound: RankName1st half/rank2nd halfScoreHits10'sX's 1Amber Dawson342 /1339 /1681724214 3Megan Bowker329 /3319 /5648722512 4Mary Zorn318 /4323 /364172248 By the end of this day, the team was growing a bit tired of seafood stew and really wanted to have some "American" food - so they opted for pizza - go figure! We talked with Ning and she arranged for a van to transport us to a pizzeria in a mall about 30 minutes from the hotel. Being able to spend some time in an air-conditioned building and eat some great pizza was really appreciated by the athletes. Some opted for McDonalds and others found Kentucky Fried Chicken - but in the end, all were happy! I did have a funny thing happen as we were shopping for souvenirs in the mall after dinner: I found some great gifts and used my VISA card to purchase them. I never sign the back of my credit cards, I simply put "See ID" on the strip where your signature is required and then after I sign the receipt the store clerk looks at my driver's license or passport, sees my picture and signature and all is good. All is good in the US, that is. In Thailand, "See ID" looks nothing like "Kristine R. Ehrich" and that caused the store clerk some distress. Especially since he didn't speak English and couldn't understand when I tried my best to explain to him what it said and what exactly 'See ID" meant. "Just look at my identificationthat is a picture of me, and that is my signature - and it matches the one that I've put on the bottom of the receipt - see?" No, clearly he didn't see - he didn't understand it at all. After about 2 minutes of trying to explain my logic to the clerk and clear things up, I looked at Tom and shrugged. I politely took the receipt from the clerk - the one on which I had already signed Kristine R. Ehrich - and right beside my signature on the bottom of the receipt I wrote, "See ID". The clerk took one look at it, nodded and happily packed up my things and I was on my way! Live and learn! Half of the group, accompanied by another Thai liaison by the name of Nut, had spent the afternoon at a local wildlife area where they played with elephants, monkeys, lions and tigers. The report back from our athletes was that it was a great time! Get thisChudy and Ashley Kamuf even got "elephant massages"! They'll have to explain to you exactly what those are, but I have heard that the elephants are extremely gentle! It has to do with lying on the ground on your stomach, a blanket covering your back - and then having the elephant (yes, full grown - monster-sized elephants) "gently" pressing his or her foot on your back repeatedly! One sneeze and that would have been the end of two-thirds of our women's recurve team! Lorinda Cohen was video taping this whole ordeal - but the tape is quite 'jumpy' as she was laughing too hard to hold it steady!! July 12th was the individual elimination day. All of our men's recurve individuals had byes in their first round. In the 1/16 round, Guy Krueger defeated Jouni Simila of Finland 160-146. Vic Wunderle defeated Yew Kuin Cheah of Singapore 164 -128 and Chris Shull defeated Perttu Ronlenan of Finland 155-143. In the 1/8 round, Guy and Vic faced each other with Guy coming away with a victory of 159-158. Chris defeated Wen-Pin Su of Chinese Taipei 150-149. In the quarterfinals, Guy beat Tadashi Matsuzaki of Japan 111-95 and Chris beat Jong-Sang Jung of Korea 108-103 to advance to the semifinals. In the semifinals, Guy lost to the eventual gold medal winner, Jeff Henckels of Luxembourg 111-107, while Chris was defeated by Aurelien Daux of France 108-105. That pitted Chris and Guy against each other for the bronze medal. Guy came away with the medal after the score was tied 105-105, forcing a tiebreaker and winning 10-8. Chris took 4th place, while Vic came in 11th. In the women's recurve individual eliminations all three of our athletes advanced past the 1/16 bracket with Ashley Kamuf defeating Pawalee Young-Yuen of Thailand 143-114, Dawn Chudy beating Shizuka Enimoto of Japan 146-141 and Lorinda Cohen handling Lavinia Dellerba of Italy 158-124. In the 1/8 finals, Dawn came from behind to take out the number one seed, Jeong-A Park of Korea, 161-153, by shooting a perfect 60 on her last end. Ashley lost a close one to Almudena Gallardo Vicente of Spain, 154-152 and Lorinda lost to number three seed Hyung-Hee Kim of Korea 166-135. In the quarterfinals, Dawn defeated Sayami Matsushita of Japan 105-103 to advance to the semifinals where she defeated Hsin-I Chen of Chinese Taipei 101-100. In the gold medal match, Dawn came away with the silver, losing to Mun-Joung Kim of Korea 109-101. Ashley came in 11th place and Lorinda took 16th. In the men's compound elimination rounds, Eric Zahn defeated Richard Wilkens of Great Britain 156-155 to advance to the 1/8 finals where he was defeated by Andrea D'Alessandro of Italy 162-153. Caleb Heller defeated Arnaud Guilleret of France 166-157 and Adam Wheatcroft defeated Worapath Doungcharem of Thailand 168-157. In the quarterfinals, Caleb was defeated by Mark Poels of Nederland 111-108 and Adam beat Pierre Misraki of France 111-107. Adam beat Boris Venot of France 111-109 in the semifinals and went on to win the gold medal handily over Timothy Mundon of Great Britain, 116-108. Caleb took 6th place and Eric 15th place overall. In women's compound, all three of our women won their quarterfinal matches. Amber Dawson beat Nuttida Thongpan of Thailand 110-103, Mary Zorn beat Eva Ansaloni of Italy 108-102 and Megan Bowker defeated Flammetta Scarzetta of Italy 102-94. That pitted Amber and Mary against each other in the semi-finals where Mary came out triumphant 113-109. Megan lost to Yi-Ting Huang of Chinese Taipei 109-105. In the bronze medal match, again two of our archers shot against each other - Amber defeated Megan in a tiebreaker of 10-9 after they both shot a 111 in the match. This gave Amber the bronze medal and Megan 4th place. Mary went on to win the gold medal by a commanding 113-104 win over Yi-Ting Huang of Chinese Taipei. Oh yes, I said I would get back to the intake of water story, didn't I? Following the individual gold medal matches, each archer is required to submit to a drug test. I'm going to take the liberty of telling you one of the funny stories of the trip - I'm sure our "unnamed" archer won't mind I had said that all of the archers were drinking plenty of water, and it is true that they were really pouring it in. Andin mind, no one became ill, felt dehydrated, complained of anything, etc. Each gold medallist has to have a witness go with him or her to the drug-testing site, so I went with. Upon arriving at the site, we were shown the urine containers and told to wait on the sofa until she felt ready to submit. We were also told that there was a refrigerator with bottled water in it - just in case it was needed. Our gold-medallist grabbed a bottle of water as we were leaving the tournament field and had finished it be the time we got to the drug-testing site. She grabbed another from the refrigerator as soon as we arrived. We sat on the sofa, she took another bottle of water, sat some more, took another bottle of water, sat some moreyou see a trend here? In all, she drank 7 bottles of water in the 40 minutes that we sat there - I don't need to tell you her name - I'm sure you know it, but I will tell you that she became affectionately known as 'Water" by the locals! July 13th was the team round day. Team rounds were scored a bit different than traditional team rounds. These were called academic team rounds where it was a hit or miss system. The 'hit' zone counting for one point, was yellow and the size of the 9 ring on a 122 cm face; the rest of the face was red and was the 'miss' zone and counted 0 points. In the men's recurve division, we had a bye in the 1/8 round and lost a close one to Italy in the quarterfinals, 18-16. Italy also beat our women's recurve team in the quarterfinals, 11-8. Our women's compound team had a bye in the semifinals and beat Italy in the gold medal match by a margin of 22-14. Our men's compound team beat Great Britain 23-13 in the semifinals and went on to win the gold medal against France 23-20. In all, we came away with 8 out of our 12 athletes medal ling. Dawn Chudy - Individual Silver, Women's Recurve Guy Krueger - Individual Bronze, Men's Recurve Adam Wheatcroft - Individual Gold, Men's Compound Amber Dawson - Individual Bronze, Women's Compound Mary Zorn - Individual Gold, Women's Compound Adam Wheatcroft, Caleb Heller, Eric Zahn - Team Gold, Men's Compound Mary Zorn, Amber Dawson, Megan Bowker - Team Gold, Women's Compound The awards ceremony was very nice and the closing ceremonies were again quite entertaining, but long - given the (warm J) weather conditions. Following this we were again taken to the nearby resort hotel and treated to a farewell dinner and ceremony. We munched on sautgrasshoppers as an appetizer (delicious, I must say) and Vic fed the bats that were flying through the air by throwing pieces of bread at them. We left around 10pm which was before the dinner ended, but we needed to get back to our hotel since we had to meet in the lobby of the hotel at 2:00 am to load the bus and leave for the airport. Upon arriving at the airport in Bangkok, Ning (our Thai liaison) led us through customs and to the international flight area. The flight to Tokyo was fine as was the flight from Tokyo to LAX. However, the connections at LAX were a little too tight and some of our athletes missed their planes to their final destinations and were made to wait for the next flight out. The heightened security and busy airports require more time between connections, especially connections in the US when arriving from an international flight. Another lesson All in all, a great trip. Quite successful, and I'm almost certain that if given the chance to go again, all of the archers would jump at the opportunity. I hope you enjoy the recap of the events. I can't possibly write of all of the happenings, but hopefully you can get a feel for both the tournament and some of the side events. Thanks to all of you who donated to the cause - it was GREATLY appreciated!! Kristine Ehrich 2002 WUAC Team Leader  A few Q&A: TexARC:: "What kind of food was provided at the hotel, buffet style, for y'all - was it typical American cuisine, or exotic furrin stuff ?" Kristine: "It was mostly Thai food - lots of seafood stews served over rice and chicken dishes (served over rice), a few beef dishes (served over rice). Most of us thought it was pretty good - but admittedly no one wanted to go out for rice when I saw them at Nationals last week! The seafood stews got old too - unidentifiable sea creatures, and some that you could identify and wish that you couldn't. Whole squids thrown in, big pieces of octopi tentacles, etc. At least four or five times they served French fries on the buffet table- that went over big with our athletes! LOTS of fresh fruit - and great stuff. Fruit that we've never heard of nor seen - but good. Always tons of watermelon and fresh pineapple too - then the exotic fruit that we couldn't pronounce but which tasted good. Oh, and in addition to the ever-present rice and seafood stew for breakfast, they always had pancakes available on the buffet table. Strange, but we ate them up!" TexARC: "You said earlier, "7-11" store?" Kristine: "Isn't that funny?! Almost no other "American" stores, your very rare Kentucky Fried Chicken, we saw a McDonald's and a Pizza Hut -they were not easy to find, but there was a 7-11 on almost every third corner! Very funny. We went in one of them - of course I couldn't read most of what was sold in there, except the forever present Pepsi and Coke!" TexARC: "My experience with Thai food is that it can take paint offa taxi at 50 paces - how was it for the team and who nearly died?" Kristine: "You're correct - it had a certain "kick" to it. Yeah, that is putting it mildly. You had to cautiously taste bits before you could take a spoonful. Of course Vic and some of the others have been on enough foreign trips that he knows what works with his system and what doesn't. I think he stuck with fresh bread, fruit that he could identify and some chicken dishes and rice. About half of the dishes were hot (spicy) as served, but a lot of the "hot stuff" (sauces, spreads, sprinkles) was in bowls to be put on your meals at your own risk. There was a bowl of a sugar mixture - with some red strings or flakes in it - sitting near the fruit one day. I put a spoonful on my plate and then ate a small spoonful when we got back to the table. Holy cow. Not meant to be taken alone. We later were told that it is a mixture of sugar and hot pepper - very hot pepper. It is meant to be sprinkled on the fresh pineapple slices before eating. I was quite wary because of my first experience with it, but started trying this method and it was actually very good - when eaten in the correct manner..." |
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| Junior World Team in Nymbrk, Czech Republic The results of the Junior World Team Championships are being held right now in the Czech Republic, and Sage Adams, Tim Meyers, and Kevin Barker are representing both A and the USA there. Check their progress |
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| AOTY Archer of the Year Archer of The Year is awarded to the person who excels in their division. Master, Senior or Junior can earn this award. The only criteria is that you be in a division that shoots the same round and same distances as the Senior division. There are three Archival Archery state titles that make up the AOTY and that is the Archival Archery state indoor, field and target. The person who has the highest score is awarded 25 points. For each point below the high score, you deduct .1 from 25. Fro example: Robin Hood shoots a 1150 indoors and William Tell shoots 1144 points, that means a 6 point difference so Robin earns 25 ranking points and Sir William earns 24.4 points. A 6 point difference divided by 10 is .6 from 25. You can win the AOTY by taking your best two rankings from the three state champions and adding those two best scores together. You do not have to attend all three events (which is always highly encouraged) but you have to attend two events to be considered for the AOTY. Congratulations to this years winners:
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