World Field Archery Championships Start on Monday

Majura and Lennox Gardens near Canberra in Australia will be the venue of the World Field Archery Championships, which is to start on Monday the 9th of September.

The sport of field archery is often compared to golf because it is conducted in wooded and open terrain where the archers in groups of four walk around and shoot at 24 various targets on a designated route. Like golfers, traveling archers may find field courses to visit all over the world, from Northern Norway to Southern New Zealand.
Despite the long travel, many European and American field archers are packing their bows to join their fellow athletes of the Southern hemisphere in Australia. Among them will be well-known target archers as well as field archery specialists who have already won medals in this discipline.

‘The finals will bring the event into the center of Canberra on the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffen. This will enable the public close up views of the skills of the world’s best field archers in action,’ said Stuart Atkins from the Organizing Committee.

Big turnout
The organizers have registered 160 participants from 22 countries for the event and the Australians are really pleased to announce that Cambodia will participate for the first time in a Field Archery Championships. USA and Australia will take part with full teams of 18 archers.
Field archery has become a very successful event of the World Games. Last year, the World Games in Akita, Japan were watched by many people who enjoyed walking along the course following the ‘Tiger Woods’ of archery such as the compound archer Dave Cousins of USA and French recurve archer Carole Ferriou.

A 6th sense required to shoot
The difference from the Olympic sport of archery is that the distances vary from 10 meters to 65 meters and some targets are set at unmarked distances. No target is like the previous, and no course is similar to another. Hence, the archers who compete in field archery must develop a sixth sense to accurately estimate the distance to and the size of the target. Moreover, many targets are placed uphill, downhill or sidehill, which requires a special shooting technique.

The Championships in Canberra are for adult archers only and the bows used by the archers will be the recurve bow (Olympic), compound bow and barebow (recurve bow without sights and stabilizers).

For more information please contact:

Press Officer Lena Baden lenabaden@hotmail.com +41-79 501 9285