Blue skies and pegs in Punta Umbria

All teams participating in the first European 3D championships arrived safe and sound here in Punta Umbria, Spain. The day kicked off with the official training and material inspection at the field. The lineup for the official training consisted of a couple of field targets at known distances for archers to tune their equipment and get their distances right. Other then that, a selection of 3D targets where placed at alternating unknown distances. The shooting area is an area right behind the dunes with lots of sand, heather and small pine trees. Overshooting a target during practice was therefore not the end of the world: arrows had a soft landing in the sandy soil and could easily be retrieved. Not that we saw a lot of overshoots during the official practice. These pour 3D animals where hammered by the archers and nearly toppled over by the amount of arrows sticking out of their sides.

We walked the courses for the 1st qualification round and noticed how the blue and red pegs are hammered down into the sand. It is actually an insult to call them pegs. They are poles about as thick as a mans foot and can withstand a storm. Since archers need to touch them whilst shooting the targets, it is rather important they stay where they are. And these poles don't take a blink even when abused by archers. We all have seen these human draglines, shoveling the floor level before taking aim. We are pretty confident these poles could not care less. Obviously, since this is an unknown qualification round, we can not tell you that much about the courses. We will however publish the setup of the targets from the blue and red course on Thursday, late in the afternoon, so you have a chance to glance over the shoulder of the people shooting here and get an idea what it was all about in Punta Umbria in Spain, during the first European 3D championships.