Susan Buckland: Developing a new string to my bow

COMMENT

The pursuits of archery and overseas travel do not usually coincide unless, of course, you are participating in an international tournament. Which is what I have just done beneath the snowy caps of the Austrian Alps.

I can report that I have not let the side down. A silver medal jangled home in my suitcase. And while the World Media Games, hosted by the Austrians in their spectacular mountains, is not to be taken too seriously - although the triathlete competitors performed like Olympians - I found the experience, well, most satisfying.

William Tell and Robin Hood have assumed a new status in my eyes. Splitting apples or the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham, I now realise, would have taken true focus, not to mention muscle.

When the invitation came to compete with 550 others from 35 countries I told the Austrian hosts that I was no triathlete.

What about archery, they offered. Why not, I thought. A neat way to avoid pedalling up and down mountains and puffing purple-faced across country on unpractised legs. And I have always fancied hitting a bulls eye.

But with no experience of archery and not wanting to shame my country on the day, I took off to the Auckland Archery Club. I recalled that, as a 15-year-old when my mother was teaching me to drive in Cornwall Park, I had seen the club's sign on a gate leading to a field with a row of targets.

I remember thinking the members had it made, learning to shoot bows and arrows beneath One Tree Hill with cows for company over the fence and trees spreading their shade in summer.

Chris Baker came to my rescue with three one-hour lessons in the week before I left for Austria. An accomplished archer, she put me through preliminary paces and took the sting out of the whack of bow against my arm by showing me her initiation scars.

You'll stop whacking your arm after a while, she smiled assuredly as my inner elbow turned violent pink.

The other soothing news about archery is that it tones your arms. Bearing its anti-flab powers in mind helps in a no-pain-no-gain kind of way. Archery helps to build stronger backs, too.

With lesson three over, I headed out of Cornwall Park, dodging the free-range roosters escorting their harems across Twin Oak Drive. Chris had suggested I take some arnica to Austria, the stuff that battles bruises. And she sent me forth into the world with instructions to focus.

The Korean archers are champion focusers and take away Olympic gold medals for their efforts. They start out honing their skills at an early age with months of arm-movement practice before they pick up a bow. No wonder they can almost do it blindfolded when the big moment arrives.

When mine came, in the village of Seefeld in the Tyrolean Mountains, I was relieved to discover an absence of Korean contestants. But there were a surge of others including an athletic-looking Russian woman called Svetlana. At our practice run she scored several shots dangerously close to the bull's eye.

What the heck. When you've spent a couple of days in the imperial city of Vienna and four more in the Tyrol, biking along scenic (and easy) trails and ambling through fields of wild flowers and fir trees that evoke visions of Julie Andrews and her Sound of Music family, you feel relaxed.

The World Media tourism Games, after all, is a device launched by Austria's tourist arm to entice travel writers from around the globe to their country. (As if any enticement was needed.)

Inaugurated in the early nineties, they have proved successful cementing Austria's relationships with its international markets. Because the event is staged each time in a showcase part of the country, participants enjoy the cultural as well as sporting appeal of Austria.

And the food and wine. Which is why I woke each morning to a view of the Alps from the window of my hotel - a 400-year-old former monastery which offers five-star hospitality - and took to the hills to counteract the calories.

There I communed with cows with bells around their necks, enjoyed stunning views of Seefeld and limbered up for the big contest.

Right. The day arrives and there I am with my New Zealand crested jacket and Wolfgang. The latter being my supervisor.

I tried to remember what Chris Baker had said if I found myself without a sight-pin on the bow to help me focus. Focus on the point of your arrow was her instruction.

What about the target being at ground level instead of raised? "Just try and become one with your bow," Chris would have said.

What about Svetlana, the Amazon of the media world? Well, Russia's Svetlana took away gold, pipping yours truly from Godzone by only two points. Shows what you can do when you focus.

I would like to thank Chris Baker from the Auckland Archery Club, the hospitable Austrians and let's not forget Halle Berry's lawyer. I would like to thank Wolfgang for wrapping a large protector around my arm and saving me from looking naff by having to resort to the oval piece of plastic I had cut from a bottle of Jif.

And I would like to thank my family and friends who thought it was high time I added another string to my bow.