- 10 Aug 08, 06:47 PM
Watching sport should be fun. And usually it is. Unless you're watching an event where you have a vested interest.
Like Sunday's women's archery team tournament at the Olympics in Beijing.
As the media adviser to Archery GB, I know Alison Williamson, Naomi Folkard and Charlotte Burgess, and have a great deal of time and respect for all three of them.
So obviously I was willing them to win a medal. Gold was a tall order - the Koreans are quite simply phenomenal, but silver was a possibility; bronze I'd have settled for.
Alas, they left empty handed, after defeats to China in the semi-finals, and then France in the bronze medal shoot-off. I was mortified.
But if I was disappointed, then how must Alison, Naomi and Charlotte have felt? The tears said it all.
I think what made this even more disappointing is that I know that Alison, Naomi and Charlotte justify their world ranking of number two, and if I am totally honest I suppose my expectations were high.
But that reflects the faith I have in all three of them. Oh, and if I'm brutally honest, I was also thinking of the great publicity and profile for archery that winning a medal would bring!
That said, it was wonderful to see archer featuring on live television. And though the result wasn't what we wanted, it was certainly a gripping watch, when I could bear to look!
But I am an eternal optimist, and the three Brits will bounce back. Indeed, sometimes a kick in the proverbial teeth can make you more resolute, and I have no doubt that they will turn up for the individual tournament in the week more determined than ever.
Monday is the men's team tournament.
Alan Wills, Simon Terry and Larry Godfrey won silver at the World Championships last year, and they have the ability individually and collectively make up for Sunday's disappointment.
I'll be a cheerleader in chief once again. But will I able to cope with the tension?
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Comments
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it was good to watch. first time i have seen the sport live on the box, and to be fair, it was very exciting. unlucky to the brits but they did well. is there not an individual competition also ?
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In the end the French were good for their win - they handled the pressure and conditions better than our girls. Just being number 2 in the world doesn't gift you a medal i'm afraid.
This is exactly why the Olympics is such captivating viewing for any sports' fan. The world rankings go out of the window and although GB lost out on this occasion, the moments when we do much better than expected more than make up for it.
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Great to see Archery on TV, and although there was no medal, it was a close match and so made the last few ends very exciting.
Well done GB women's team!
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Peter's article reflects my thoughts exactly. I know one of the team and shoot regularly with one of her parents. It feels like a personal hurt that they didn't do themselves justice. That Alison only got one gold score is astonishing and very hard to explain. If the French had shot out of their skins then you could shrug it off, but that wasn't the case.
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I have never taken an interest in archery
before
But I tell you what every time it has been on I have been glued to the TV, and now have found out that someone in my street is an archer and now I want to bet involved.
Brilliant coverage and easy to understand.
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I haven't watched high level competition archery before, although I used to shoot a longbow at re-enactment events. I don't understand why archery uses elimination scoring. It is not like badminton for example where that is the only way to tell who is best. It seems terribly unfair for silver and bronze. I was watching one of the men's rounds last night and the Spaniard did brilliantly against the Mexican in such a close match where they both got really high scores and he missed out by one single point and got eliminated. Surely he should have been allowed to compete for silver or bronze? Could this be explained somewhere please? I would have thought they could have more than two archers at a time.
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