So it was finally time. Competition day number one of three in the UKAT 2026 World Cup, the moment I had been training for all spring and early summer. The risk of being a little overcharged is always there, at least in my case. However, it had gone well so far, and the night before had, as I described in part 1, turned out well.
Now it was Thursday morning. My sleep had been so-so, and when my phone told me to get up, I wasn't particularly rested. Although still charged, I must admit. A really good Italian double espresso made life better.
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| The club banners are starting to come up |
The set-up was such that the first day's competitions involved "Games" in different variations. An excellent way to start, in my opinion, as it leaves the "heavier" disciplines such as Walk Back and long distance for later. Especially the latter, and with an axe can actually hurt, and if so, most of the competition is over. Good to do last, in other words.
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Another early bird, Angelo Krebs, a.k.a. flying_blades on IG, who wanted to get a few throws under his belt before breakfast
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I myself chose to start with the Silhouette knife. The idea was that it felt less important to me than, for example, "Hunter," where I had a silver medal from the last World Championships to defend. All said and done, I warmed up with my set of rotational knives, Le Primitif Rotation from Zitoon Knives. It felt quite good, considering the circumstances. I was a bit tense. But I noticed that the targets had become somewhat harder during the night. As I said, it was warm even though the sun hadn't had time to do its thing yet.
Unfortunately, it turned out that it wasn't the targets that made up the silhouette. They had obviously been hanging for longer, and they were new. Often, planks are used for this event, but here they were end-timber targets stacked high. I made the rookie mistake of wanting to have an event completed in the morning, so I was up and running. But that meant I went out as the fourth man in line, and the targets were unfortunately not watered and, above all, really hard new as they were. Worn-in targets are, as you know, significantly softer.
That made me panic a bit. My first of three test throws barely stick to the target. The second was harder and hit an extra hard surface and BOUNCED backwards out again! Damn, damn, damn was what I thought. My problem is that these knives are quite thick, and this applies especially to the tip after I ground them down over time. This was despite the fact that I had sharpened them before the World Cup. In the original, they are longer and, above all, more pointed.
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| A deceptive target that would prove to be my nemesis |
After that, to be honest, things went downhill. I used more force, which certainly meant that the knives were stuck, but also that the aim on the first two throws was about 10 cm too high. It was overcorrected in the third throw, and my first -10 p was a fact. It wasn't until the last throws that I figured out the target with three straight hits, but then it was time. The final result was therefore just -10 points. A lousy result, and not at all the start I had in mind. Unfortunately, this also affects the total ranking points that are counted on all elements. For example, this result gave place number 100. I will return in a later post with all my placements and rankings.
Such a start is just to forget and then aim for the next event. The day was not over yet! As such, "Speed Throw" was chosen. A rotation discipline, which was the idea, but without prestige for me, as I only throw it at championships because I can't practice in advance, knives are missing. My goal was to hit more than 13 knives in the target, which was my previous personal best. But it didn't work out, and the same result was achieved again! But I wasn't unhappy with that.
When whirling tools were still relevant, the silhouette axe was also passed after a brief warm-up. That also went so-so, but my expectations of myself were not high. I am a real beginner at axe throwing.
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| Someone who is significantly better than me at axe is Simon Wall from Sweden |
It was worse with the next two events that I actually want to perform well in. It's about Nine Target but mainly Hunter, where, as I said, I had a medal to defend. That didn't turn out well either. I threw decently, which meant 33 points, which ultimately gave me 8th place. I couldn't do anything about the medals this time. It didn't feel good, I must admit.
But it should be added that the course was both strange and a bit boring. Firstly, it wasn't varied at all. It consisted only of sawn-off stumps, but with different slopes on the cut. Nothing that deviated beyond that. But worse was that all but one or two were long-distance targets (6-8 meters), which definitely gave those who threw hard a big advantage. Then it didn't get any better because there was some cheating, even though this was pointed out to the organizer. However, they didn't dare say anything.
In this discipline, the idea is that you are not supposed to see and, above all, not practice on the course before the briefing. But some clever participants figured out that if you go and get Coutanque targets that would be used later in the day and put them up at different angles on a football field and then practice for half an hour, it would be better. This was partly noticeable on the podium!
The plank, or Nine Target as it is actually called, was a bit of a deal for me. Average points gave an average place. That is to say, twenty-two points and a 21st place. But a compliment to Zusanna from the Czech Republic, who managed to beat everyone regardless of class by scoring ALL points. Who knows if it has happened before!
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| A Hunter course that I didn't like at all |
Another discipline I have never trained in and have only thrown once is the moving target. It was noticeable when my result of 19 points was enough for 41st place. Not much to say about it. Possibly, I will throw No Spin instead of rotation next time.
The same can be said about Duel, but with the difference that I was really satisfied there. A discipline I do not train in and have only thrown with a machine twice before. My personal best was lowered from 1.48 s to 1.32 s, which gave me a 17th place. The sixteen best went on to the real duels.
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| Tomorrow's challenge was waiting around the corner, both literally and figuratively! |
So the competitions started, and the roller coaster had begun. Some decent results in Speed throwing, Hunter, although it was below expectations, and Nine target mixed with bottom nip as silhouette knife and personal best in Duel.
However, the feeling was to concentrate on tomorrow when it was time for my planned parade events in Walk Back knife, but above all, No Spin, both Walk Back and precision throwing. That was when all my training would be reflected, at least that was the idea.
/ J - was in progress anyway
