I had the chance to shoot some 360° panoramas in and around the venue, so here is a set of 8 panos, inlcuding two panos shot during the finals:

There are also regular pictures available: http://www.archeryimages.net/gallery/index.php?action=pictures&bps=100&cid=683

You’ll find the gallery here: http://www.archeryimages.net/gallery/index.php?action=pictures&cid=681

To get the latest news about the upcoming final rounds, follow the official twitter account, visit the event’s website or the facebook page.

Viktor Zeman and Miroslav Bojcun from the Slovak Republic are the two guys behind rcherz.com and it seems, like they mean business. Together with a hired full-time php programmer from Indonesia, they set up the site in little more than half a year and went online about two month ago in March this year. At the moment, the site is still in beta phase, but this shouldn’t stay this way for long, if they continue with their pace.

A lot has been going on since the beta launch in March, but still, rcherz.com (which, by the way is also accesible via http://www.archeryfriends.com) is kind of buggy and needs some final touch. The advertised features are on the other hand very promising: You can upload and share scores, create competitions and invite friends, you can keep in touch with all the archers in the world, and post about archery as much as you like, without annoying your non-archer friends on facebook.

I am suprised about the professional level of rcherz.com and how serious Zeman and Bojcun are pushing their project. They obviously believe in a financial success, and they try to do it the “facebook way”, by offering an unconditional free service, that generates revenue via ads. It’s a very different approach to archerylifestyle and it requires quite a lot of people using the service.

Let’s see who is still there in 5 years, let’s see who got it right…

This is a view of the user’s homescreen, which actually looks a lot like Google Plus:

For me, it’s definitely an exciting development. I am curious about what it will do for the archer community.

Official Website: http://www.rcherz.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rcherz

Target of Brady Ellison (USA) in competition

After the first day of qualification rounds at the European Indoor Tournament in Nîmes, France, the American archers seem to be on drugs as they set the mark incredibly high in the men’s recurve as well as the men’s compound division. Brady Ellison ties the world record with 597 points with the recurve, while teammate Braden Gellenthien misses the world record with the compound by only one point and 598 points. To bad for him, the Canadian Christopher Perkins had just raised it to 599 last year!

See results here: http://www.arcclubdenimes.com/resulttournoi/12/qualifs12.pdf
And livestream (continues tomorrow) here: http://www.livestream.com/europeantournamentnimes2012

Additionally, with the video material provided by Harald Meyer I was able to produce a video of the elimination rounds in the women’s recurve division. It’s also available in the newly created youtube-channel of archeryimages: www.youtube.com/archeryimages:

Last but not least, Archery TV is uploading huge amounts of video coverage of the London Olympic Test Event 2011 at the very moment. So, if you need a time filler until the world champs will go off have a look at their channel (www.youtube.com/archerytv) and see experienced world-class archers like the Korean Jin Hyek Oh struggling with the wind in London (GBR):

Friday, 16th of December:

It’s the first day of the Berlin Open International Tournament. At this point, the first qualification round has been finished, with 3 more to come. There are fresh first pictures available in the gallery. For the first time in the history of archeryimages, I am providing them on my own (proud as hell!). So stay tuned for more and enjoy:

Click here for the picturegallery of day 1.

Saturday, 17th of December:

More qualification rounds and the 1/16th elimination were on the schedule today.

Click here for the picturegallery of day 2.

 Sunday, 18th of December:

It was quite difficult for me to shoot pictures today, as I made it pretty far in the finals and proceeded to the quarterfinals, becoming 7th eventually. Also, I missed the finals because we had to start our trip home. Nevertheless, some nice pictures are available now, some more should follow in the next days. I had a great time and a wonderful competition and I am already looking forward for the Berlin Open 2012!

Click here for the picturegallery of day3.

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:

www.berlin-archery.com

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.

Since then, a lot has been going on for the armless archer. The story of Matt Stutzman continues as he is now a member of the Para United States Archery Team and will compete in the Paralympic Games 2012 in London. His strong will seems to be a really good substitution for the physical handicap he faces and still is truly inspiring. There are many disabled archers out there that all face a lot of different handicaps. Still, to be so strong-willed suffering from such an extreme handicap like this guy, is outstanding.

You can follow the story of Matt Stutzman via his website with the lovingly sounding name www.inspirationalarcher.com or follow him on twitter: www.twitter.com/InspireArcher.

Some new videos of him can be found on youtube, among them an interesting interview for the US Paralympic Archery Team:

FITA World Cup Logo

The 2011 Archery World Cup Series is over, with 4 stages in Porec (CRO), Antalya (TUR), Ogden (USA) and Shanghai (CHN) and a big final in Istanbul (TUR) in the end of September, the winners of the 2011 edition are set. Once again, thrilling matches and beautiful venues were present all over the year as trademark of the Archery World Cup.

One of the most beautiful venues sure was the beach of Antalya this year. Unfortunately, the wind blew so strong during the finals, even the top recurve and compound archers of the world sometimes were in trouble even hitting the target! If you ever wanted to see two Korean archers both missing the target as they shot in an Archery World Cup final, you have to watch the uncut women’s recurve gold final match of Antalya. Ki Bo Bae won the 4th set with 17:11 points against her opponent Jung Dasomi! And even the compound archers were in severe trouble and missed the targets. Extreme conditions there and very instructive to watch!

All other World Cup events are in the ai gallery, as pictures and videos:

• Stage 1 – Porec (CRO)
• Stage 2 – Antalya (TUR)
• Stage 3 – Ogden (USA)
• Stage 4 – Shanghai (CHN)
• Final – Istanbul (TUR)

Pictures are made by Dean Alberga, videos by Archery TV. More uncut matches are available at their youtube channel: www.youtube.com/archerytv