Berlin is ready for another Round: Berlin Open 2011
The upcoming weekend is the last one before christmas and the year 2011 is almost over for most of the archers in the world. Almost is right, since Berlin will again host a big international indoor tournament right this weekend an thus will complete the year of high-level archery.
Over 400 athletes from over 30 nations will compete in the tournament for a total price money of about 20,000€ (2010) and another 6,500€ worth in archery gear, making the Berlin Open the biggest international archery event in Germany 2011.
I will be there for myself and hopefully be able to provide up-to-date pictures during the weekend. If you like to be the first to know about new pictures and other updates, please consider subscribing to my RSS-Feed or following me on twitter @archeryimages.
The official press release for the Berlin Open 2011:
This year (16-18 December), BB-Berlin e.V. archery club will be hosting its second annual “Berlin Open”, an international archery tournament awarding both monetary and other valuable prizes. This event is made possible through a successful partnership with the Open’s main sponsor, WIN&WIN (Korea), and numerous other supporters and sponsors.
Last year, 300 athletes from 21 different nations kicked off the event. Apparently the Open has quickly made a name for itself: and not just nationally, but also internationally. We currently have registrations from 430 athletes from 34 nations on 4 continents. Based on the number of registrations, it is obvious that the basic underlying principle behind this competition “recreational sport meets high-performance sport” is taking off. Amateurs and newcomers will be competing alongside national and international marksmen on the start line to compete for valuable prizes.
There are already some world-class names on the “Berlin Open” starting list. In addition to German archers Sebastian ROHRBERG (World Champion and European Champion titleholder), Elena RICHTER (European Vice Champion), Karina WINTER (World Champion), Kristina BERGER (World Record Holder) Paul TITSCHER (only World Cup Final participant 2011 and European record holder), Max KUPFER (last year’s winner) and Andrea WEIHE, international top shooters like Chang-Hwan, LEE (KOR/ World Champion 2009), Natalia VALEEVA, PIA Carmen LIONETTI (both Italian), Dave COUSINS (USA) Peter ELZINGA ( NED/World Record Compound), Martin DAMSBO (DEN), Sergio PAGNI, Morgan LUNDIN (SWE), Ivana BUDEN (CRO) and Patrizio HOFER (SUI) will also be in attendance.
The archers will be competing against one another in one of four competition classes (recurve women/ men, compound women/ men). They will be placed during the qualification round on 16/17 December, which will consist of 2 x 30 arrows at a distance of 18 meters. The best 32 archers in each class will qualify for the final and the chance to win monetary prizes. All the other archers will be entered in the 2nd finale, “Second Chance”, along with the amateurs and newcomers, for the chance to win valuable prizes. Last year some of the newcomers gave seasoned archers a run for their money.
We look forward to an exciting, top-class tournament. We hope our archers hit the gold and that this tournament helps us establish a permanent event, not only to get the word out about archery but also for Berlin as a sporting city.
For more information about the competition please visit the Berlin OPEN Homepage:
If you like to get more information about the Berlin Open, please visit the official event website or the ai gallery. There are pictures of the first event in 2010 available and some interesting slowmotion videos from the finals as well as the men’s and women’s recurve gold final matches in full length.
