Sebastian Rohrberg (2009)

What name comes to your mind, if you think about German archers? It most certainly will be this one: Sebastian Rohrberg. The two times World Field Champion of 2006 and 2008 and World Indoor Champion of 2007 did it again! This time, it is a gold medal in the European Indoor Championships held in Porec, Croatia that he won just an hour ago. Even though he had already claimed gold three times in World Championships, it’s his first European title. In the gold final match he defeated Michele Frangilli (ITA) with an advantage of one point 117:116. Congratulations!

The other Individual European Indoor Champions are Natalia Valeeva (ITA), Sergio Pagni (ITA) and Anna Stanieczek (POL).

Get all results: http://www.ianseo.net/Details.php?toId=54

Archery is a very open sport when it comes to disabled persons. As far as I know, it is the only Olympic Sport where disabled persons can (successfully) compete with “normal” athletes. This is valid for physically disabled persons as well as for mentally disabled ones. A good example for such a disabled athlete is the German Mario Oehme, who won the Paralympic Games 1996 and 2004. He has been in a wheelchair after a mining accident in the 1980s and is in the German Paralympic National Team since 1993. But he is one of the archers that is actually able to compete against non-disabled archers and defeat them on a very high level. He proved that on several German Championships in the past.

Even though those positive examples can be role models for others, it should not distract us from the fact that disabled archers have often a lot of problems to struggle with. Archers in wheelchairs are quite common nowadays, but some archers have to deal with more difficult handicaps like blindness or absent extremities either from birth defects or accidents. There are some good examples of how these people deal with their handicap and doing archery anyway. These pictures are taken at the World Archery Para Championships 2009 in Nymburk (CZE):

Finally, the video of the armless archer. In my opinion, it is an extreme example of what is possible if there is a will. I have never seen somebody doing archery with a comparable handicap and moreover, this guy here is doing quite good.

Edit: Yesterday, at January 12th, Andrew Leibs published a good article called “Archery for the Blind”. If you are interested in such things and if you want to learn more about the possibilities for disabled persons to do archery, this might be a good start for you:

http://accessibletravel.suite101.com/article.cfm/archery_for_the_blind

Kathuna Lorig (USA)

So, whats it with archers and tattoos? After so many pictures that I published here, I noticed a lot of archers like to show they bond to archery through a tattoo. It is very interesting what different types of tattoos you find. And even more interesting, what is a good part of the body to have a tattoo on for an archer?

It seems like competing in the Olympic Games is still the most important goal for quite a lot top-level archers in the world. Many of them want to perpetuate a participation in that competition by getting tattooed, that is the reason you find a lot of tattoos with relation to the Olympic Games. And where do you need to have your fancy tattoo placed? The forearm is a very nice spot if you like it to be seen while competition (especially for recurve archers).

Two examples for combining the forearm with the olympic symbol are Khatuna Lorig and Brady Ellison of USA:

Another popular place for archer’s tattoos seem to be the ankle, as proven by the following pictures:

Archery Grandmaster Natalia Valeeva of Italy joins with an archery-in-general tattoo at her ankle

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while Marie-Pier Beaudet of Canda remembers her first participation in Olympic Games 2004 aged only 17 at the same, obviously popular place.

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Bérengère Schuh with Hoyt´s FormulaRX

Hey Folks!
You may liked the portraits made by the french photographer Jean-Denis Gitton ( www.jdgitton.com ) that were already online at archeryimages for some time. There are new ones to see!

The pictures are portraits of Thibault Fioretti and Bérengère Schuh, who are both members of the french national team, presenting the new clothing line for their team.

The pictures are licensed under a creative commons license, it’s detailed conditions are linked within the gallery. Regarding that conditions, these picture are the only ones on this site that can actually be redistributed and used in other public ways. Big thanks for that!

Oh, I forgot the most important thing: The link to the gallery.

Varese 2007

Thanks to Timo Rantanen (http://www.timorantanen.com) there are now amazing 2000 pictures of the 2nd stage of the World Cup available. Heavy rain didn’t make it a pleasure to shoot, even though some archers shot some extraordinary results. But see for yourself.

To the pictures