Attendance at this year’s Indoor National Championship was at an all-time high with some 1,925 archers competing in this past weekend’s event which was once again held at the Kentucky International Convention Center. The event drew competitors from as far away as Denmark with FITA’s Athlete of the Year Stephan Hansen and Mike Schloesser from the Netherlands making the trip to compete with many of the big hitters from the USA like Jesse Broadwater and Reo Wilde.
Stephan Hansen’s decision to attend the event was a difficult one; Stephan was faced with some pressure that most of the archers competing in the event would never face. Stephan was forced to make a very difficult decision to decline an invitation to dine with the queen of Denmark in order to do what he felt was necessary to prepare for the event. Stephan declined the invitation because he wanted to minimize the effects of the jet lag and to get in some extra practice before the event so he chose to arrive two days prior to the events start. The choice to decline the queen’s invitation looks like it may have been a wise decision for the young 20 year old.
Stephan’s preparations for the event also involved some strategy in his arrow choice which was an interesting one. The event starts with the first two days of the elimination rounds using a scoring system that gives archers an advantage when they use large diameter arrows Stephan choose to use his Carbon Express X-Jammer 27 so he would be able to cut more lines. During the shoot off the scoring changes to an inside out scoring method so Stephan decided the most effective way to approach this method of scoring was to utilize his outdoor arrows which are the small diameter Nano Pro’ s. Stephan felt the small diameter arrows would reduce the chances of him cutting a line and gain him an advantage over his larger diameter arrows.
The shoot off began with eight archers that had all shot clean during Saturday and Sundays elimination rounds. All of the final eight were utilizing larger diameter arrows during the shoot off with the exception of Jesse Broadwater and Stephan. After the first end five of the eight finalists had fallen out of the competition leaving Nathan Brook’s, Jesse Broadwater and Stephan Hansen. The second end found Nathan Brook’s failing to keep his large diameter arrows inside the X ring placing him on the podium in third place.
Stephan and Jesse moved to the third end with Stephan solidly placing his arrows in the X ring and Jesse finding some of his arrows wondering dangerously close to the line. The officials ruled the third end a tie so they moved to the forth. Stephan seemed very calm and confident entraining the forth end and once again solidly platted his arrows in the center of the X ring giving him the win over Jesse who had slipped an arrow outside of the X ring. Stephan received $ 7,500 from the NFAA for his efforts and his win in Kentucky.
About Carbon Express
Carbon Express®, an Eastman Outdoors, Inc. brand, is the leader in high performance carbon hunting and target arrows and arrow components for hunters and target shooters. For more information or customer service, visit www.carbonexpressarrows.com, or call 800.241.4833.