China Archery

ORDOS, Inner Mongolia, Aug. 12 (Xinhua)
They all come from Nujiang, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, but represent different teams to compete here at the ongoing 10th Chinese Ethnic Games. For these shooters of ethnic Lisu, crossbow is life.
“Our group of people love crossbow, especially the men,” said Yu Siyi,coach of Team Yunnan, the favourite of the traditional crossbow shooting at the ethnic games. “We bring the crossbow along no matter where we are going to and play crossbow shooting almost every weekend.”
Taking aim, firing and competitors trying to hit the bull’s eye, the game of crossbow shooting is similar to archery, but the shooters don’t need to pull the bow while they put the arrow in a slot to fire it with a trigger.
At Nujiang, ethnic Lisu account for almost 70 percent of the 540,000 population. “There are men and women, young and old playing crossbow shooting. Boys even begin to shoot at the age of five and their crossbows are made by their parents,” said Yu.
The traditional crossbow is made of wood and the arrow is made of bamboo. Zhong Xingcai just makes crossbows for living.
“I’m good at making crossbows. I can earn 80,000 to 90,000 yuan every year,” said the craftsman competing for Team Yunnan. Read more…

FUZHOU, March 27 (Xinhua) — Chinese national archery team launched selection games on Friday in Putian of Fujian rovince to choose archers from 101 competitors for Rio’s Olympic Games.

According to the organizing committee, the national archery athletes will be selected based on the scores of international contests, national matches and fitness test. The first round in Putian will last till April 10 when 24 archers will be listed. The second and third round will be followed as various games go on.

Mu Yong, head of the national team, said the final list of six archers for Rio would be released next June.

“Before that, we need to play well at world archery championships in Denmark this July to win the qualified seats of Olympics,” said Mu.

Mu said Chinese national team is very young with an average age of 23 to 24. Many talented archers stand out and become competitive.

“We are still inches behind South Koreans,” said Mu. “Our young archers lack experience, especially when the game goes up and down. They need to be more steady and confident, with better psychological control over their emotion.

“We also prepare the special training with different weather conditions, especially in the rainy and windy days.”

Source: English.news.cn

INCHEON, South Korea, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) — China swept Malaysia 6-0 to clinch the recurve archery men’s team title for the first time at the Asian Games here on Sunday.

Chinese athletes Yong Zhiwei (L), Qi Kaiyao (C) and Gu Xuesong pose on the podium during the awarding ceremony of the recurve men’s team match of archery at the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea (Xinhua/Wang Peng)

The Chinese young archers edged their South Korean peers 5-4 after the shoot-off in the semifinals two days ago, then defeated their final rivals from Malaysia without mercy.

“I have to say that I was a little bit nervous as it’s the first time I competed in a final,” said Qi Kaiyao, 21, who launched his campaign on Sunday with an excellent 10’s. “We had prepared for a hard fight with the rivals and we had strong confidence in ourselves.”

The three Chinese archers contributed to eleven 10’s in three sets while the Malaysians shot the center mark for eight times.

“We hadn’t expected that we could win so fast,” said Yong Zhiwei, who also qualified for the individual semifinals later on Sunday. “But we believed in ourselves. We had faith in the team.”

South Korea’s loss to China means it failed to secure its ninth straight gold in the event at the Asian Games, but the hosts managed to edge Japan 5-3 to grab the bronze medal earlier.

“Our male archers did perform well at the Asian Games,” said Mu Yong, the manager of the China’s archery team. “They kept calm and shot marvelously. Especially in today’s final, they showed no fear at all.”

In the women’s final, South Korea beat China 6-0 to defend their title. Japan took the bronze after beating India 5-4.

Source: English.news.cn