Growing up, I dreamed about doing something to make my country proud. I always was good with sports, and deep down in my heart I believed that one day I will make it to the big scenes (no idea about the sport though, since I loved different sports at different times). Growing up, changing sports, figuring out what I want to do with my life was an important time in my life, however after I figured out my path I put my leg on the pedal and pushed it hard, tried to make my best effort to do something good.
Going from competition to competition, made me better. It enabled me to look things from different perspectives, and once you do that you will eventually get better at things. For athletes who go form competition to competition and don't really have time to train their techniques, believe me I know your pain. You can develop bad habits in competitions, you adjust something according to the weather conditions, or you just do to many repetitive mistakes which then will change your technique, in the other hand you cannot really go back to training the essentials because you have to be at your best in the competition. Improvising is something you gotta be good at in competitions like this, its not the best method, but it is essential.
The "Baku 2015" games, were coming at a very high pace. I kept training and doing some duties with the National Olympic Committee, things like these kept me busy and kept me from thinking that in just few weeks my life long dream was being realized.
Your whole body hurts, you feel bad but you gotta move on. You have to push yourself to the limits when you want something very badly. But sometimes you will face unforeseeable problems, and on this one something very bad happened which made my competition rather difficult.
Traveling day: It was a very hot day the day of my travel, I didn't travel with my team, some of them traveled earlier for the opening ceremony but some other athletes who's competition were later during the games traveled latter.
My day started fine, I packed everything, I wore the National Olympic Team clothes and we drove to the airport. It was going fine, until it wasn't. A flight delay, normally this wouldn't be to big of a problem, however in this day, with a catch flight exactly 1 hour after I would land in Istanbul. The flight captain told us that they have contacted the Istanbul airport, telling about the delay so we would be able to catch that flight. That didn't happen, we landed well in Istanbul but there was no catch flight for us, the place already left and we got stuck at the airport.
Whoever has had this happen knows it is not fun, especially in a non English speaking country like Turkey. We had a lot of difficulties trying to figure what we had to do, how do we fly to Azerbaijan, I had to compete in two days. . .6 hours latter. Finally, we are about to catch a bus that Turkish airlines provided to send us to the hotel and sleep for a little bit, they found us a plane 13 hours latter. We go to the hotel, sign in and go to sleep, dead tired we were at that point. I couldn't get much sleep, I was tired and worried about my competition, I managed to sleep a little bit, woke up, had breakfast and straight back to the airport. A flight from Istanbul to Baku takes around 3 hours, we land, go through the normal processes on the airport and finally we are out of there. It was around 4 p.m. when I got on the bus and traveled straight to the shooting field, we had 2 hours to reach there in order to get the equipment inspection or else we wouldn't be certifies to shoot. We barely made it, we actually were a bit late, however World Archery was notifies about the situation we had with the flights and waited for us to go there, I do the equipment inspection, shoot 4 ends of 6 arrows and go back to the hotel to rest a little bit, I was exhausted from all the travelling and waiting.
I couldn't sleep well that night, I was dead tired and I had the biggest competition of my life in just 8 short hours. I slept sometimes late late night. . .
Woke up at 6 a.m. (which in my local time would be 3 a.m.), had some breakfast and got on the bus, I was nervous and didn't rest very well last night, the heat was unbearable but I couldn't do anything.
The qualification round: Well I didn't start it as I wanted, wasn't able to shoot well. My technique wasn't quite right, and from the two days of travelling I couldn't get focused on my shooting. It ended very badly with a very bad score from me, (I hadn't shot a score that low in quite some time) but I knew that I just needed some time to rest and get accustomed with the dry weather in Baku to get back to my normal shooting.
The elimination round: This is where I did very well, I had the chance to shoot a lot of practice rounds, I had the chance to get accustomed with the weather and most importantly I started to shoot my technique. I was to face Mauro Nespoli (number 1 qualifier and one of the best archers in the world). I wasn't afraid, I felt great, I was about to face one of the best archers of the world, in one of the greatest stages in the world and I was shooting good. I got back to my technique, and was shooting the best I ever did. The groupings were there, my technique was there and everything was going smoothly.
Match time: We enter the shooting stage, previously we shook hands with Nespoli and his coach and he decided he wanted to shoot first (the higher ranked archer chooses whether he wants to shoot first or second). There were over 600 people watching live and a lot of cameras all around the stage, I was feeling good but also afraid (one of the better archers in this competition, in one of the previous matches missed the target completely. I didn't want that happen to me).
I close my eyes, take two deep breaths and I pull my arrow, I execute my technique correctly, release and I hit a 8. I was happy, it was a good shot, next one was a 10 (dead center) and I end on another 8 (the same spot as I hit my first arrow). The cheers I got when I hit my 10, made it easier for me to finish the rest of my shots, I wasn't feeling the same pressure as I did before.
I lost the match on straight sets, however, I shot very good. I was very happy with what I did, and so was my coach. The changes that we've done were working good, I just needed time to prepare for future tournaments and I knew I would do good.
The rest of the days I was in Baku, I spent watching other sports and enjoying the weather (which funny enough wasn't bad now that I wasn't doing sports). Our team won a bronze medal in Judo (we have some of the greatest Judo athletes of the world in our country) and we had a lot of fun over there the next 3 days I was there. The flight back was quite boring, I wish my flight to Baku was as good and as boring as the flight back home.
I got back in my home country. For few days I decided to shut down, just stay around home and do nothing. I enjoyed that, however I got back to reading, working and training. I had another international tournament that year, I had to prepare, I had to keep working. Never stop working!
Going from competition to competition, made me better. It enabled me to look things from different perspectives, and once you do that you will eventually get better at things. For athletes who go form competition to competition and don't really have time to train their techniques, believe me I know your pain. You can develop bad habits in competitions, you adjust something according to the weather conditions, or you just do to many repetitive mistakes which then will change your technique, in the other hand you cannot really go back to training the essentials because you have to be at your best in the competition. Improvising is something you gotta be good at in competitions like this, its not the best method, but it is essential.
The "Baku 2015" games, were coming at a very high pace. I kept training and doing some duties with the National Olympic Committee, things like these kept me busy and kept me from thinking that in just few weeks my life long dream was being realized.
Your whole body hurts, you feel bad but you gotta move on. You have to push yourself to the limits when you want something very badly. But sometimes you will face unforeseeable problems, and on this one something very bad happened which made my competition rather difficult.
Traveling day: It was a very hot day the day of my travel, I didn't travel with my team, some of them traveled earlier for the opening ceremony but some other athletes who's competition were later during the games traveled latter.
My day started fine, I packed everything, I wore the National Olympic Team clothes and we drove to the airport. It was going fine, until it wasn't. A flight delay, normally this wouldn't be to big of a problem, however in this day, with a catch flight exactly 1 hour after I would land in Istanbul. The flight captain told us that they have contacted the Istanbul airport, telling about the delay so we would be able to catch that flight. That didn't happen, we landed well in Istanbul but there was no catch flight for us, the place already left and we got stuck at the airport.
Whoever has had this happen knows it is not fun, especially in a non English speaking country like Turkey. We had a lot of difficulties trying to figure what we had to do, how do we fly to Azerbaijan, I had to compete in two days. . .6 hours latter. Finally, we are about to catch a bus that Turkish airlines provided to send us to the hotel and sleep for a little bit, they found us a plane 13 hours latter. We go to the hotel, sign in and go to sleep, dead tired we were at that point. I couldn't get much sleep, I was tired and worried about my competition, I managed to sleep a little bit, woke up, had breakfast and straight back to the airport. A flight from Istanbul to Baku takes around 3 hours, we land, go through the normal processes on the airport and finally we are out of there. It was around 4 p.m. when I got on the bus and traveled straight to the shooting field, we had 2 hours to reach there in order to get the equipment inspection or else we wouldn't be certifies to shoot. We barely made it, we actually were a bit late, however World Archery was notifies about the situation we had with the flights and waited for us to go there, I do the equipment inspection, shoot 4 ends of 6 arrows and go back to the hotel to rest a little bit, I was exhausted from all the travelling and waiting.
I couldn't sleep well that night, I was dead tired and I had the biggest competition of my life in just 8 short hours. I slept sometimes late late night. . .
Woke up at 6 a.m. (which in my local time would be 3 a.m.), had some breakfast and got on the bus, I was nervous and didn't rest very well last night, the heat was unbearable but I couldn't do anything.
The qualification round: Well I didn't start it as I wanted, wasn't able to shoot well. My technique wasn't quite right, and from the two days of travelling I couldn't get focused on my shooting. It ended very badly with a very bad score from me, (I hadn't shot a score that low in quite some time) but I knew that I just needed some time to rest and get accustomed with the dry weather in Baku to get back to my normal shooting.
The elimination round: This is where I did very well, I had the chance to shoot a lot of practice rounds, I had the chance to get accustomed with the weather and most importantly I started to shoot my technique. I was to face Mauro Nespoli (number 1 qualifier and one of the best archers in the world). I wasn't afraid, I felt great, I was about to face one of the best archers of the world, in one of the greatest stages in the world and I was shooting good. I got back to my technique, and was shooting the best I ever did. The groupings were there, my technique was there and everything was going smoothly.
Match time: We enter the shooting stage, previously we shook hands with Nespoli and his coach and he decided he wanted to shoot first (the higher ranked archer chooses whether he wants to shoot first or second). There were over 600 people watching live and a lot of cameras all around the stage, I was feeling good but also afraid (one of the better archers in this competition, in one of the previous matches missed the target completely. I didn't want that happen to me).
I close my eyes, take two deep breaths and I pull my arrow, I execute my technique correctly, release and I hit a 8. I was happy, it was a good shot, next one was a 10 (dead center) and I end on another 8 (the same spot as I hit my first arrow). The cheers I got when I hit my 10, made it easier for me to finish the rest of my shots, I wasn't feeling the same pressure as I did before.
I lost the match on straight sets, however, I shot very good. I was very happy with what I did, and so was my coach. The changes that we've done were working good, I just needed time to prepare for future tournaments and I knew I would do good.
The rest of the days I was in Baku, I spent watching other sports and enjoying the weather (which funny enough wasn't bad now that I wasn't doing sports). Our team won a bronze medal in Judo (we have some of the greatest Judo athletes of the world in our country) and we had a lot of fun over there the next 3 days I was there. The flight back was quite boring, I wish my flight to Baku was as good and as boring as the flight back home.
I got back in my home country. For few days I decided to shut down, just stay around home and do nothing. I enjoyed that, however I got back to reading, working and training. I had another international tournament that year, I had to prepare, I had to keep working. Never stop working!
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