Okay, I had a bit of trouble for the title of this posting. A great article by Lori Riley about Olympic hopeful Shayna Jenkins. It is always interesting to learn how America’s up and coming archers learn about the sport, and how they come to become one of the best. It’s great that Olympic archer Butch Johnson is helping in coaching her along with her JOAD coach.
Shayna Jenkins
A few years ago, her father promised her a target for her room at their home in Litchfield if she won a tournament.
She won.
Her mother, Gayle Carr, had a few reservations.
“I knew she wasn’t going to miss,” Carr said. “And it’s just for form. You don’t shoot from that far away. But I didn’t realize she had shot the center out of the target.”
Shayna, 15, a Litchfield High sophomore, is one of the top young female archers in the state, and according to her Junior Olympic Archery Development coach Walter Moore, one of the top 10 in her age group in the country.
The article is short on details in specifics with the archery teams, but it looks like the world-wide financial situation is affecting certain sports in the UK. The government is looking to match monies gathered from the private sector. For certain sports, this hasn’t materialized, for others the situation is better.
The axe hangs over ten of Great Britain’s Olympic teams before a key funding decision next week that will define the country’s preparations for London 2012.
So, who could be the winners and losers in the scramble for cash?
Winners Sports that met or exceeded their targets in Beijing in August or are able to identify potential medal-winners in 2012 — archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrianism, gymnastics (artistic), judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, swimming/diving, taekwondo, triathlon.
Losers Sports that missed their Beijing targets or have little chance of a medal in 2012 — basketball, fencing, handball, hockey, shooting, table tennis, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling.
Just a reminder to our archers, we’re taking a holiday break through Jan 1st. Our first practice will be on Jan 3rd, 2009.
There are some tournaments coming up however. Dec 7th is the CAA tournament. Dec 13th is the fundraising tournament south of Atlanta. Check the calendar for details!
EXMOUTH’S Olympic archery hopefuls will be forced to leave the town to train in the lead-up to London 2012 if a new all-weather archery range in Withycombe is not approved.
The club want to build a 31-metre-long, eight-target indoor archery range next to their outdoor facilities at the southern corner of Withycombe Raleigh Common.
The timber-clad design, covering 403 square metres - with an additional 52 square metres of landscaping - would be given the appearance of a ‘traditional barn’ and would be ’sympathetic’ to the surrounding area.
The building would stand a little under five metres tall, be 12 metres wide and set into the hillside ‘to minimise the visual impact’.
It is good to see that a couple of Georgian archers have made the team.
Aaron Henslin - Screven, GA - 2009 Junior USAT Recurve Men
Samantha Pruitte – Harlem, GA - 2009 Junior USAT Compound Women
USA Archery has officially announced, later than expected due to incorrect National Target results, the 2009 United States Archery Team (USAT) and Junior USAT. The Senior USAT consists of the top eight male and top eight female recurve and compound archers in the country. Junior USAT consists of the top five male and top five female recurve archers and the top five male and top five female compound archers in the Junior division (including the year of their 18th birthday), as well as the top-ranked Cadet (including the year of their 16th birthday) archers in each of the four divisions.
It seems like Denise Parker is making big changes in USA Archery, and I must say that I like the changes that I have heard about so far. Of course, with changes, can bring new life, new energy, and new direction. While USA Archery is looking for a new CEO, Ms. Parker is moving forward in an energetic way to reach out to new recourses in funding and resources. The key example so far is the grant from the Easton Foundation. It is also interesting to hear that Coach Lee is staying on as coach for the USA team. It was my impression that he’d be moving on to another country, as he had in the past, and I believe had also stated was his intention.
Perhaps the single most encouraging news from USA Archery, is the willingness to reach out to the community via the web. Bottom line, is that we have a great flow of news from USA Archery, and I’m encouraged by it so far.
It has been nearly four weeks since the Board of Directors initiated significant organizational changes for USA Archery and I wanted to update you on our progress.
The Transition Task Force (Lloyd Brown, Derek Davis, Sheri Rhodes) and I met this past week with Coach Lee and Guy Krueger. The purpose of our meeting was to review the coach development programs and athlete pipeline with an eye toward blending new programs implemented by Coach Lee with USA Archery’s existing certification structure. The group evaluated programs such as the Regional High Performance Coaching program and Champs as well as partner organization’s programs like the Community Coaching Course. The ultimate goal was to develop a unified path that our organization can support.
Olympic dreams: Quinn competes in Junior Olympic Archery national competitions. He placed second in his event at the indoor nationals at Salt Lake City last year. “I’m hoping to be ready for the 2012 Olympics. That’s my goal. It’s fairly realistic.”
Weekly training: He trains with a coach on Mondays and Fridays at the Kenmore Gun Range.
Serious scholar: Quinn is a home-schooled student who takes classes twice a week with teachers through the Hill Creek Christian program in Stanwood. He’s taking what he considers a “pretty easy” class load, with honors English, chemistry and precalculus.
Here are some of the upcoming events that might be of interest to our club members:
4-H Christmas Parade Float
We will have a float in the Forsyth County Christmas parade on December 6th. We welcome all Junior and Senior 4-H’ers to come join us as we show our 4-H pride. Please call the office to sign up.
Holiday Skate Party
A holiday skate party will be held on Thursday, December 11th at Slapshots Skate Center on Piney Grove Road. The party will be from 5:00-7:00 p.m. Cost for admission is $6.00 and skate rental is $2.00.
Bring an unwrapped gift to donate to Toys for Tots.
Christmas Tree Recycling
Christmas tree recycling will be held on Saturday, January 3rd from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. at Home Depot on Market Place Boulevard. We need 4-H members and parent volunteers to help unload trees, remove plastic, and get trees ready for the chipper. Please arrange to eat lunch before or after your volunteer time. Call Miss Emily to sign up for your two hour shift.
Take a look at this great archery video, from almost 40 years ago. You’re starting to see some of the more modern equipment work its way into archery at this point: Clickers, stabilizers, and yes … aluminum arrows. Great commentary too.
