Archery World Classic 2024 - Senior Mens Open

And looks like we're going to go into the senior men's open next. That's Keith Sikora. He's on the U.S. Paralympic team. We'll talk about what he's doing here and how he gets set up for his shooting. And you see on his left calf there he's got this little electronic device. Looks like we're all situated here. We'll let Keith get up there. Cam get up on the box. Because he has very little filling in his leg and doesn't work right on him that little box is electronic stimulus. So when he takes a step it triggers his muscle and causes his calf to flex so he can take a step. Same thing he doesn't have a lot of filling in his left hand and his left shoulder so the nerves are damaged from just service injuries. And he's modified a brace to be able to shoot because of that. Now he's shooting against Cam. Cam shoots out of G4 out of Jason's shop in North Plains, Oregon. Great shooter as well. Cam feeling those nerves from the start. Looks like he might have caught a 10 there. Hopefully they'll settle down. I get it buddy. I get them too. So watch Keith. He's going to squeeze his left hand and that's his trigger. So he shot right in the middle there. So he's aiming. He's got a device that's set up on a normal release but it's got like a cable that's connected to it. It looks like a bicycle brake lever and he squeezes that bicycle brake lever as his trigger. So he can't hold the bow properly and that's one of the devices they allow to use if you have a handicap or disability. Second shot is a 9. Looks like Cam's second shot is on a 9-8 line. He's going to calm those nerves down. He's going to get there. It's a good one. That's a 10 for him on his last arrow. And the same thing for Keith on his last arrow. All right. Let's go over here and chat with Keith a little bit. So Keith, fourth qualifier, tell us a little bit about, you've got a unique setup here, so tell us a little about who your sponsors are, what equipment you're shooting, and then give the people a little bit of insight into how you shoot. I shoot for Bowtech. So I'm shooting a Bowtech Reckoning, a Trueball adapted release with a brake handle. Easton 2712s, the aluminums, and an Excelsight. It's easy. All right. Yeah. Keith says it's easy. So how are the nerves standing up on the box? Oh, fine. Yeah, they're fine. Yeah. For those that don't know, Keith shoots quite a bit throughout the country. You shoot on Paralympic, right? Yeah. So Keith's quite a bit of experience on big stages, so the nerves don't seem to bother him too much. And early on, Keith with a 30-28 lead over Cam. So two-point lead for Keith over Cam after the first 10. So Cam, clock's on you whenever you're ready. Cam's just waiting for that 10-second start clock before he draws the first arrow, and then it's a 30-second shot window. A little bit of pump there, but he's able to get back, and it probably triggered his release, actually, when started realizing he was collapsing and started pulling that. So that shot a good 11 for him. I had the same thing going on with Keith, and he's a little further out, so I think that's going to play a 10. Looks like he's shooting an onyx click. If I'm right, looked like that thing went back and set, and just off the 10 line. Same thing for Keith. Seem to be duplicating shots now. He's getting those pumps, and he shot a 10 there. I'm sure Cam will tell you, you know, those pumps are just because you're not pulling hard. You know, you think you are, but you're not, and that causes that bow to start to let down, and then you realize it and catch it right then. And then Keith finishes up with an 11. Looks like Cam's trying to put a little pressure on, maybe close the gap a little bit. All right, Cam, tell us where you shoot out of, if you got any sponsors, and then what equipment are you using? I'm shooting G4, I'm shooting Reckoning 36, Black Eagle Arrows from Borey, and a stabilizer. Nice, Conquest archery bars. How the nerves, Cam? They settled down at all, or? So high up here. He's losing oxygen, so the stand is so high. I'll remind both archers that if you need it, we got a red turbo button there for shooting at 12s if you need it. Got a couple of close calls, looks like, down there. Cam, who you got in coach's box for you? It's Darren. Any words of advice that Darren has shared with you, or he's just letting you ride? Punch it. Oh, so Cam borrowed his release, and Darren just says punch it. And we'll take a look at how the senior men's open stacked up to get here. Over. Oh, tighten it up a little bit. We got a 60 to 59. Keith with a one point lead, so Cam, close it up a little bit. One point lead for Keith going into the final end. All right, so here you see how we got here. Keith seeded fourth, then Cam, they're shooting off right now, and you see that first, second, and third place prize money there. So there's quite a few contestants in that, that narrowed it down to the top four. If you want to know everybody that was there in all the qual rounds and the brackets, go to archerworld.net and scroll off the 10 line. You see Keith put his arrow back on his rest. Looked like when he drew, it fell off the rest, so he just paused for a second, set that back up. Center punches that for an 11, so that could possibly gain him two more points. So Cam's going to want to shoot at a, maybe shoot out a 12, but again, it's easier said than done. You know, if you can shoot an 11, and he does, you know, that's gonna, that's gonna help out quite a bit. Keith's not going to give him any slack though, so Keith's with another one, and it looks like the button just got pushed, so Cam's shooting at that 12. Whether it changes the outcome or not, I don't, I don't think so, but Cam's not going to give up the opportunity to do it. Just under, from the audience perspective, they can't tell, but from the camera angle, I can tell just about a quarter inch under, and Keith finishes it out with a 33. Looks like from glance, just a little bit low, but great match, guys. Barring any scoring changes, I'm gonna guess that Keith is going to be moving on, and Cam is going to finish in fourth position. Great job, guys. So Keith is stepping off the podium for a second, because he could get bumped, and he'll have to move over to the other side. All right, final score, Keith Sikora with a 93, and Cam See with an 86. So Keith's going to move on, and Cam's going to finish in fourth place in the men's, senior men's open class. Up next, our number two qualifier, Gunny McGee. All right, Gunny's going to leave Keith where he's at. He's going to shoot on the right hand side, and then Gunny, you want to shoot first or second? First. All right, Gunny's going to shoot first. Gunny's going to take that off real quick before he gets committed. Yeah, I had to turn the light back off from the last. All right, they're hanging targets. Gunny, why don't you give us, tell us where you're shooting out of, and who you're shooting for. Matthews. I shoot out of the bull rack in Springfield. Victory Archery, Spider Stabilizers, Vayntech. Some good people. All right, fantastic. All right, looks like they're slid out of the way. First in, Gunny, you're going to be up, and just going to give Gene like he's going to start out with an 11. That one's a close one. I don't think it's going to catch the 11. It's way early. Keith's probably feeling pretty solid right now. He don't like the way that looked in his mind, but he's looking pretty good. He's looking pretty confident up there. Gunny is such a good shot. That's a, you know, not even touching the 10 line 11 on that, so he's such a great shot. A lot of times, you know, he shows up and wins against anyone. Keith with the 10 on that one, and it looks like he's going to have another 11 there, so it looks like he's going to have a 33 starting out. That's going to be solid. Oh, he sinks it. All right. Keith, I'll ask you, how many times have you shot the Archer World Classic, and how many times have you been up here on the stage? It's the first time I've shot it. First time he's shot it, and first time up on the stage, then. Nice. Yeah. Do you have a strategy in place for the 12 ring? Are you staying away from it, or are you going to shoot it if you have to? I'll look back at him. Who's back there in your coach's box for you? One of the coaches from Next Step who shot with me for a while. Nice. I trust him. So if he says punch the button, you're going to punch the button. All right. Nice. All right. Tight match early on. Gunny throwing down three 11s. I believe that's our first perfect score for the day. So Gunny with the 33, Keith with the 31. And whenever you're ready, Gunny, just give Gene an odd. We'll start end number two. Solid. Smooth. Relaxed. Real consistent form. Just looks good pulling through. Keith, yeah, I could tell that was going to be a good shot from Keith too. It's a specific movement that he does when he breaks those great shots in the middle. Another solid shot. Got a little bit of movement on that one. That may be a 10 for Keith. Gunny's going to want to open up that lead a little bit too. So if he can do that, that'll make him feel pretty good going into that last end. It's going to play a 10. Probably didn't make him happy to see it that far out of the center though. Yeah. You can see the look on his face, but that's all right. I don't think it's going to change much for this end. And Keith with a nine of his own. So Gunny, I see you got no coach back in the box back there. I'm going to guess your strategy is you don't need a coach if you shoot him right in the middle, right? Yeah. Nobody would coach me. I'm uncoachable, I think. I can understand that. I can see that. So you've got a couple of good arrows down there. Do you have a 12 strategy or are you just going to try and shoot 11s and force Keith's hand a little bit? I can't see the 12. I'm 72. But I tried it over there a couple of times and, you know, I just maybe hope I don't have to do it. That's a good strategy. Shoot him in the middle and force Keith to shoot the 12. All right. After two ends, we got a 65 for Gunny, 61 for Keith. All right. Keith's getting it. You know, Gunny's 72 years old, so there's not a division for him. So what will happen is we don't know, you know, they didn't have a higher division. So what will end up happening is he's going to podium. And so the placement that he gets is going to get another 10% per. So he's forced to shoot in the senior men's open and he is a senior, but there's usually a silver senior and a master senior as well. So eventually those divisions will come as we grow the sport. On the classic, that first arrow, he knew he's shaking his head at a nine. You don't want to give up many because Keith is not gonna... Keith will take advantage of that and he does. So he's just got a two point swing back right now. So Gunny want to be able to afford to do that again. Keith is hoping he does. And Gunny back to his normal form that I'm used to seeing. I think that's going to play an 11 for Keith. It's going to come down. You know, Keith's not even playing. He looked back at his coach. He said, I trust him on the last in and coach said, just do it. So he's like, boom, no hesitation. Now I think that's going to be a 10 for his last shot. That button's pushed. Just a little off of it. All right. Looks like Gunny's got a couple of good ones down there. So Gunny going to move on to face our number one qualifier. Keith going to finish in third position, take home a check for $182. Great job, Keith. All right. Up next, top qualifier, men's senior open, Ryan Zam. Running back from pulling arrows. Ryan can never get enough warmup arrows. All right. So your top qualifier, are you going to shoot right or left, Ryan? I'm going to the right. All right. So he's going to move Gunny over to the left. Ryan's going to shoot on the right. And you want to shoot first or second, Ryan? Ryan's going to shoot first. All right. They'll get that set up down there. So Ryan, where you shoot out of and you got any sponsors and what kind of equipment you shoot? Shooting with Delta Crack 1939. It's sponsors of the B.S. Stinger and Gold Tip. The rest of that, my site is Axel. Nice. And then you shoot up here out of the Lacey shop most of the time, right? Yeah. My entire time is here. Nice. And we see you got Ryan back in the box there for you. Moral support mostly. Or is he your strength and conditioning coach too? Strength and conditioning. Nice. He's running quite a program up here. Apparently it works. He's putting guys up on the box out here. So apparently his strength and conditioning program works. All right. Ryan's going to shoot first. Targets are set. Whenever you're ready, give Gene the nod over there. All right. So Ryan Zam, he is a former, I'm not sure if he still is with the Hoyt Pro Staff or not, but he was a former staff shooter for Hoyt. A great archer when he moved to here. He's a military man. He beat me, the last time I was able to shoot the Classic, he beat me into brackets by point on the X count moving forward. And he had been deploying a lot and everything. So looks like he's working through his process right there. So that's on the 10-11 line. Let's see if Gunny's going to sink one here on this first arrow. And he does. Ryan's now settling in a little bit. It looks like that movement, he actually made a sight change too. So when you come over here from the practice range to the podium, the light's different. And sometimes a person can tell right away they need to make an adjustment. I've not seen very many adjustments on the competitors so far that are able to move their sight. He caught a 10, but he's got a little target panic going on. And at this point, he's got to work himself through it. He's got a coach there. Hopefully he saw it. He could, you know, maybe point that out to him too. I'm sure he recognizes him, but sometimes he just may be walked off the ledge a little. Championship match. So Gunny, you've been doing this a long time. You're a stalwart competitor here in the Northwest and then also all over the country. Does it get any easier or do you still get the nerves when you get up on the box? Yeah, I'm still nervous. I've been shooting for about seven years. It's different than shooting at home in my range. Yeah, I know typically for the senior man, Joe doesn't turn the box up to full vibration, but just a little bit. All right, we got a heck of a match here. Gunny with another perfect score, 33, takes a one point lead over Ryan with a 32. Great match. And number two. All right, whenever you're ready, Ryan. All right, Ryan's still shooting first. Let's see that little glitch or hiccup he has at his release. I'm sure he recognizes that. It may be uncontrollable for him, but it's not affecting him much. I mean, that's what we expect to see right there. That's solid there. Got up there, pulled, good solid break, good follow through. No extra movement or twitches. And the score shows it. That's an 11. Gunny comes up with one of his own. Another one. Yeah, and if he stays that flow now, that's how he got where he did to begin with. So Ryan was seated number one after the quall and brackets at 743 to get Gunny's 739. So it was still close after all those arrows. Looks like he's got a 33. He's on it now. And another 33 from Gunny. All right, and number two Dunn. Gunny keeping the pressure on. Gonna make Ryan work for it. They're showing how they got here. So Ryan, you've been around a while. How many times have you shot the Archer Roll Classic and have you won yet? Yeah, two years ago. Yeah, I was able to shoot, so I was second place, not in this class. Yeah, shooting the championship where the men's open before. Yep, so Ryan's a recent convert to the senior class. He's a relatively younger senior guy. Junior against these guys, but still in the senior class, barely. Not quite to the level of the old man over there, Gunny. But as you guys can see, Gunny's got a perfect score down there, so obviously he can still shoot them in the middle. Gunny taking a one-point lead to the third and final end, 66-65. Remember guys, the red button is in play if you think you need it. Even more center on that one for Gunny. It looks like Ryan's first arrow is, I think it's going to play an 11. Longer he holds, the more that creeps in, so I think his strategy is get up there and get a shot. So that's good. It looks like it's an 11 as well. Great shot. Ryan knows he's got to do that with the way Gunny's shooting. He's got to put the pressure on him, so if he can hit this 12, that's going to put a lot of pressure on Gunny. Oh, he sinks it. So what's Gunny going to do? Oh man, he's looking back at his coach. So they're trying to figure out score, if it's going to be enough, or he's got to win, or if he's going to try to tie. What's he got to do? Oh, he's going to go for it. So he's making an outright winner. Oh, that's too close to call. That may be it. I don't know. So Ryan pulls out the 12 card and hits it, forces Gunny to either shoot an 11 to tie, or a 12 to possibly win, and that one is very, very close. This is going to come down to an arrow call. Fantastic show, guys. I'll talk to Gunny here. Gunny, 72 years old, you said, and obviously you are super competitive in the senior class, and even the younger class, you still throw up scores that are super competitive. How do you do it, and did your military experience help you at all, or is it just shooting arrows? Yeah, I think a long time behind a long gun helps, you know. I just enjoy it. I work hard. A lot of training. Oh, fantastic. Yes, it's super impressive. A 70-year-old up here throwing down perfect scores, consistently hitting the middle of the target. Very impressive. Did I catch it? All right, we got a tough line call down there. Our bino expert back here. Gunny with a 100 takes the win over Ryan with a 98. Fantastic shooting, guys. Fantastic shooting. So Gunny going to take the win. Ryan going to finish in second place. That is super impressive right there. 99 the possible score without shooting a 12. Gunny throws down 100. 102 is the highest possible if you hit the button three times. So fantastic shooting, Gunny.