I had a call from Stephen this morning, as he was preparing to return to HK after the horse archery competition in Sokcho. He had really great news, which he can give more details to later, that the HK team did a fantastic job and nearly swept the medals.
Congratulations HK Team, on a job well done!
Thomas
Samuraiwarrior
Well done archers. Did many use hornbows or what?
Did anyone get pics of the event, I would like to see what it was like.
Stephen Selby
This is an entirely biased report from the point of view of the Hong Kong team. :D
I should also point out the Lukas and Jet of the US team, and some of the Korean team won medals. I shall leave them to make their own reports (as I don't have much recollection of the details.)
Tim and Fox used Korean FRP bows from Tom Duvernay. I competed using a Hungarian-style hornbow by Csaba Grozer.
Wednesday 4 October 2005
Hong Kong?s three-man team competing in the First International Horseback Archery Competition in Sokcho (束草), Republic of Korea from 1-2 October, returned to Hong Kong yesterday with a fist-full of honours. Stephen Selby (謝肅方), Fox K. O. Wong (黃啟安) and Timothy Selby (謝凌熙), returned with three gold medals, one silver and two bronzes between them. Competing with Hong Kong for the awards were horseback archers from the Republic of Korea and the USA.
The competition consisted of the following events:
1) A single shot at a gallop along a 120m straight line.
2) Double shot at a gallop along a 120m straight line, first shooting forwards at 60m and then backwards at 90m.
3) Five serial shots at a gallop, shooting first at three targets with an interval of 30m located in a straight line, then curving left and shooting the fourth target at 120m and the fifth target at 150m.
There were three classes in the competition: children (under 14 years), youth (14 to 20 years) and adult (over 20 years.)
 Timothy Selby (age 17 years) won the gold medal for the double shot and bronze for the serial shots in the youth class.
 Stephen Selby (father of Timothy Selby) won gold for single shot and the serial shot and bronze for the double shot in the adult class.
 Fox K. O. Wong won silver for the single shot in the adult class.
Scores can be awarded for accuracy (hits on the target, the same as for normal archery), speed (the actual measured running time of each competitor is deducted from 20 seconds and the balance is added to the score) and the standard of horsemanship (balance, harmony between rider and horse, control and rhythm). Extra points can be earned by hitting the first three targets in a series, and all of the targets.
?Horseback archery is an ancient sport, which has been revived in the past few years,? said Hong Kong?s team leader, Stephen Selby. ?At present, there are two main sets of competition rules: Hungarian Rules and Korean Rules. We follow Korean rules, because they are close to traditional Chinese rules. Also, it is more convenient to go to Korea for competitions.?
?This was the first international competition using Korean rules. Two previous events have been held on a national basis in Korea in the past two years,? Selby said.
?We are delighted with these results, given that among all the competing teams, Hong Kong is a relative newcomer. We shall be returning to Korea next year to try and defend our success.?
