U.K.A.T. World Championships, part 3

  - The competitions begin

It was finally time. Time for theories to be put into practice and training to be transformed into competition at the highest level. A pretty big step for me, as I had only competed in the Swedish Championship and the Soulthrower Open before. But the latter is certainly a small but still an international competition that attracts good throwers.

Since at the World Championships you can compete in almost any order you want, the thrower can choose what suits them best. I thought I would start with something relatively simple to get a feel for the situation and the courses. It can be added that it was very hot these days. The temperature was between thirty and thirty-five degrees, and around ten hours a day would be spent outdoors. This resulted in more than one sunburn and a few cases of sunstroke among the competitors. 

Day One - Games

These ever-present competition nerves. Yes, I know it applies to others, too. But in my case, they can be almost paralyzing. I can simply more or less forget what technique I am using, or rather, should be using. It happened, for example, at the Swedish Championships a year ago when I missed the first throw from 3m in rotational. I don't mean in miss as in a three instead of a five, but in as in "knife-on-the-ground miss". Something almost impossible to achieve. Such incidents can make anyone nervous!

To deal with it, I tried to think about what my wise brother told me when we spoke before I left. He said, "Have fun"! Then he added that I have nothing to prove. Anything that goes well is a bonus. Completely correct idea, but harder to implement. It was there in the back of my mind, though.

But now it was time to get started. Games were a good start, and my idea was to open with rotational disciplines because they are both easier and not quite as close to my heart as no spin. 

Moving Target

I opened with "Moving Target" for the simple reason that I had never seen the discipline live before and therefore had no demands on myself at all. There were some hits and some misses. Nothing to write home about, but nothing to cry about either. A fifty-eighth place was the result in the end. A lot of room for improvement, in other words.

The first competition for me was Moving Target

Richard Karlsson from Sweden threw better; he managed to win a bronze medal, which was a really great moral boost! As in other sports, the atmosphere is contagious when teammates are doing well. Now the bar was kind of set. Although I didn't know that at the time, I might add. The competition day had just started. 

The first medal for Sweden, a bronze, was won by Richard Karlsson in Moving Target.

Silhouette

The next event for me was Silhouette, as it three-meter rotational is actually the easiest to throw. But add competition nerves and the fact that this heraldic griffin that formed the target was one of the more difficult in a long time. Some of the rings/bullseyes were more or less inside the wings, which meant that a "negative" hit was constantly threatening. The thrower gets five points for each ring and minus ten if the knives even touch the silhouette. 

I didn't do well with a couple of quick hits followed by a series of misses that were all very close. But that doesn't help, and above all, it doesn't improve the score. The precision wasn't there, and only when I relaxed towards the end did the technique work. The last three throws were pounded into the target in quick succession and in the right place, but by then it was too late.

The result was a twentieth place in this event. Up to the podium, it was twenty-five points or five more hits. Absolutely not impossible, especially not as I threw forty-five at the last Swedish Championships, but it didn't work out this day.

Trick shots after the competitions, but here you can see the difficult silhouette target

Then it can be added that the silhouette is also thrown with axes. I did compete, but that was all. I had the axes for two weeks before the competition, and I had never thrown silhouette with axes before. Since, as I said, you can get negative scores in this discipline and the target was tricky, I ended up with minus thirty points, which led to 84th place out of 131 competitors in the discipline. The good thing about that is that I, no doubt, will improve next time.

Sure, I could have gotten higher points by being tactical and not throwing at all, or rather, making sure to miss on the more difficult bullseyes, but how much fun is that?

Speed throwing

In speed throwing, I actually had a goal, namely to beat myself. I don't have any knives to practice with at home, so I've never done that, but I've competed in this event at a couple of Swedish Championships in a row. Always with the same result, 11 knives. This time it went relatively well and I managed to put 16 in the target, but three were outside the scoring area, so the final result was 13. 

Which was still a personal best, so the result had to be considered decent albeit modest. It was enough for a 36th place. The best in the sport are grinding, and that's actually not something I'll ever do. I don't think it's that fun. But it's impressive to see the speed they get up to.

The Plank

The next game on the program was the much-feared "Plank". It consists of a plank that slopes away from the thrower, and on it, there are nine sectors to be hit. One point closest to the thrower and up to nine at most. The closest sector is three meters away, and then it increases to about seven meters. The difficulty lies in the fact that the distances are not exactly marked, but mainly in the fact that the surface slopes significantly. If you throw rotational, the risk of over-rotation and thus a miss is imminent. That's why I chose No Spin.

The feared Plank

After a couple of good initial throws with hits in the middle sectors, the feeling was good, and the points were acceptable. Unfortunately, this was followed by a couple of misses, some of which could have been avoided. Here, too, practice is lacking, and I will probably arrange a plank at home to practice. My 18 points were enough for 20th place.

Acejet Master

In addition to the more usual disciplines, there was a special one because Acejet was the main sponsor of the event. In this case, you would throw "Bo Shuriken", straight throwing needles from three and five meters. I have never done that before, and I am not entirely a fan of how light they are in general. But my effort was enough for a ninth place overall. Up to a medal place, there were four points, so with a little practice, it is within reach, although I do not think this specific discipline will return.

Hunter

So there was one more game I had never seen called "Hunter". It turned out to be a pretty tricky discipline. The thrower stands in a ring and has to hit eight different targets with three knives each. The targets are both at an unknown distance and are designed differently. Size, shape, and, not least, inclination vary. Especially those where the surface is tilted away from the thrower were difficult. You can't see the target you are going to hit!

Added to the difficulty was that there was quite a crowd at this course. There were many who were curious about the competition format. But by this point, I was both tired and hot. In addition, things had not gone so well before, and the expectations that an, to me, unknown game would make a difference were not there. But since the key to good throwing is to relax, it went beyond expectations.

For me, the situation was not very different from the times I throw out in the forest at various objects. I managed to pick up forty points. The annoying thing was that I hit the farthest ones and had a close miss on one of the easier targets. Something that would later prove decisive. At first, I didn't know if my result was good or bad, even though I took the lead at the moment.

Waiting for the first awards ceremony, the one that became an anticlimax for me

Later, I learned that my result would be enough to earn a first place after the deadline at six o'clock had passed. One of the other Swedes informed me about this. However, I didn't really dare to believe it because it would give me gold! 

And sure enough, when the prize-giving ceremony later took place, Hunter was saved to last, and it was found that so many people said that they hadn't "managed" to finish that particular one of all the games that it was declared open the next day as well. That's how the potential gold slipped out of my hand. Especially since I had no idea who was left to compete or how good they were. 

The second Swedish medal. A silver for me in Hunter

But it would turn out that only one person threw better and got ONE damn point more than me. But a silver medal was at home! So my first World Championships was already well above expectations, also in terms of results.

Waiting for the next day

The first day of competition was over. It had been very hot, hectic, wonderful, and full of impressions that needed to be sorted out. I already realized that there would be no problem falling asleep that night. Or so I thought. Hradec Králové had a few surprises for the visitors this particular weekend, as it turned out.

Now there was only the rest left. Day two involved the "heavy" disciplines such as Walk Back in both axe, knife, and No Spin, as well as precision and distance in these disciplines. At the same time, qualifications had begun for both "Duel Throwing" and Coutanque. 

In the first one, I didn't get anywhere for the same reason as in some others; I've never tried them. Throwing from the sheath is something I'm good at and I very rarely miss, but it's never been done with a timer before. My time was about thirty percent worse than my opponent and I was out in the first inning. But in Coutanque, I somehow managed to win the first matches and move on in the tournament.

But more about that in the next post!

/ J - the silver medalist