Hot off the back of the Welsh and & UK Championships, I
had an email with a bit of fantastic news which could spell the biggest change
in my Archery career since I left recurve behind and picked up a compound… I’ve
made it into the European Pro Series!
I’ve wanted to go professional and join the Pro Series for a
while, but I couldn’t make it to the qualifier for this years events as it was
a 5 day shoot in Hungary that clashed with family plans and I couldn’t really
afford it. I contacted the organizers though to register my interest and gave a
brief history of my shooting and they awarded me a place in the reserves.
Well my number has come up! The next event is in Fort Van
Lier in Belgium on the 23/24th of August and due to last
minute dropouts, the reserves have moved up into the target list and I have
been invited – so I will be making my Professional Archery debut next month in
Belgium!
I’ve had to get my passport renewed and one of my
friends is competing at this event and has room in his car to haul me
along and offered me a ride. We are splitting the ferry/fuel costs to make it
manageable and I will be camping at the fort to save money as it is over 300
Euros to stay at a hotel for the duration of the shoot. I enjoy camping anyway so that is no problem at all for me!
Everything is in order, my bow is well tuned and I have all
the equipment I am going to need. I’ve only got one shoot between now and then -
a FITA field shoot at Fort Purbrook in Portsmouth in 2 weeks time so I
will use that as a final chance to make sure everything is where it is supposed
to be. We will be arriving in Belgium a full day before the competition though so I will have the full day to make use of the official practice session and ensure everything is on the money before the real deal.
Well.. in the immortal words of Q from Star Trek -
“The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged. It’s now time to see if you can
dance…”
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