HAVING A FIELD DAY

The Italian international Michele Frangilli’s list of recurve achievements over three decades is pretty extraordinary. It includes an Olympic gold medal, the senior outdoor World Championship, and multiple world records at many distances – plus no less than three World Field Championships individual titles. He remains one of the few elite recurve archers who, throughout his career, has given equal importance to the non-olympic disciplines.

I once asked him how shooting field had influenced his career, and he said this:

“Field shooting is the university of archery. I have practised field shooting since I was 10 years old, and I have always loved this discipline. The progression to the full control of the shot in any situation needs training in any possible shooting condition. This can only happen during field competitions.

“What you can learn on a very hard and challenging field course cannot be simulated by hundreds of days of training in the same position and on the same fixed distance target. Of course, the four-distance FITA round was also a good training in this respect, but not as good as field.”

This attitude is still news to many elite target recurve archers, although not the world’s best compound target archers, some of whom actually consider themselves specialists in

3D and field shooting with target a definite second. Most notably, the new men’s target world champion in the discipline, Nico Wiener, developed his career in the 3D world, rather than target. We interview him on page 10.

With less daylight about and winter firmly in the frame, getting out in the woods may be the last thing on your mind right now. But as with our previous ‘field specials’, we urge you to give it a try next year – if you don’t already, of course.

See you at the red peg,