Dark clouds over Belgrade
Yesterday was a very challenging day for the FISU Technical Chair for Archery Juan-Carlos Holgado. ‘We experienced some really bad weather’, Juan-Carlos told FISU Media. ‘I call it a mini typhoon. There was a lot of rain, the sky was pitch black, it was very windy and you couldn’t see anything. We were lucky that we reached the end of the day and we only had to cancel the last session. The nice field the Military Academy and the OC had built was badly damaged and we worked until midnight trying to save it The army cleaned out as much water as possible. Unfortunately it was raining last night, so this morning it was all wet again. Nevertheless the Serbs did a good job to dry it. However, the weather forecast for tomorrow is rain again. If it’s another mini typhoon, I don’t know how we can survive’, said Holgado
Since the weather is the one thing you can’t control, the former Olympic Archery Champion and his staff worked out a number of emergency plans.
‘As soon as we were hit by the bad weather we took the decision to stop the competition for safety matters as there was lightning’, Holgado explains. ‘The athletes were sheltering under the tents holding them with their weight to prevent the tents from flying away. Immediately we came up with four emergency plans. Plan A was moving the whole set to a football field nearby. I checked if we could organize the competition from there but it was impossible as the field was not free. Plan B was working on the actual site as much as we could and hold the competition even if it was wet. Plan C, in case the field was really bad, we would cancel the team event and award the team medals based on the ranking. Plan D was e to cancel a number of matches. We informed al the teams. This morning we came to the scene and the field looked good. So we finally decided to keep the competition in the original venue. So Plan B worked as all the archers informed us they wanted to shoot all their arrows. They said ‘if our feet get wet, they get wet’, so there is a very good team spirit and I’m happy we could continue the competition.
Referring to the competition, once again the level of archers at the Belgrade Universiade is very high. In the right column an overview.
Women Compound:
Top 15 world ranking: 4
3. Buden (CRO), 12. Lorenty (USA), 13. Anschutz (USA), 7. Loginova (RUS)
Top 8 world cup: 2
2. Buden (CRO), 8. Lorenty (USA)
Women Recurve:
Top 15 World Ranking: 5
9. Mospinek (POL), 14. Koval (UKR), 12. Nichols, J (USA), 7. Erdynieva (RUS), 10. Lionetti (ITA)
Top 8, world cup: 1
5. Lionetti (ITA)
Men Recurve:
Top 15 world ranking: 2
1.Ruban (UKR), 14. Serrano (MEX)
Top 8 world cup: 1
6. Aubert (FRA)
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