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World Archery Championship, Copenhagen 2015

I want to begin this blog, by apologizing to you guys, I haven't been able to write that much lately, I don't have a lot of time and I cannot seem to find motivation to write, however, whenever I find the time and I start writing, I love it. I am also training for an upcoming important competition, that is taking a lot of time out of my schedule and work hasn't been easy either. I promise one thing though, I won't stop writing, I may delay blogs but I will keep em coming.

Today my story goes to the beautiful Viking land. I want to share the story of my time in Denmark, taking part in the World Archery Championship there. 2015 was a big year, I had a lot of training and multiple international competitions and I have to admit I got tired a little bit by the end of the season. This Championship was at the end of the season, I was tired but I had to compete here because this is where the best athletes come and compete, you cannot miss a chance like this and that was the reason I decided to go and shoot.

As always, world championships gather the best archers from around the world and its a real treat to be part of competitions like these. This was no different. I remember training for this competition very hard but with a lot of problems while doing this. Shooting a lot of competitions, without having the proper equipment, or without having the proper shooting range is not something easy to do, but we keep at it. . .

As per usual we travel from Kosovo to Turkey, and from there to Denmark. The flight went very well, there were absolutely no problems.
Whoever has been to Denmark will tell you the same thing, it is absolutely breathtaking. From the airport we took a bus to the hotel, the bus had Wifi (that was a first for me) and the driver was Albanian which was sweet since we could ask him a few things about the city on our way to the hotel. What can I say about the hotel, it was very cool (we actually had a little bit of a problem checking in but with the help of the competition organizers we solved it quickly and settled), we stayed in the largest hotel in Scandinavia, very interesting. Right after we put our clothes in the closets, we went out to watch that part of the city, it was stunning. There were very few cars, everybody rode bikes, it is a beautiful sight, a very very clean city with a river in the middle of it. This is what I call a good city to live.

The last few blogs were focused on the shooting and explaining the competition part, on this one I would like to deal a little bit more with the experience of visiting Copenhagen. I think it is important to mention the main part of the tournament and the lessons I learned during it, but I think it is equally important to talk about the trip itself since a lot of times I focus myself so much on the competition that I forget to enjoy myself on the different beautiful cities we visit.

 The competition: During the two days of training we got before the official practice I felt surprisingly good, I was shooting quite well, my technique was on the right place, from time to time I would do very basic mistakes (mostly due to tiredness, sometimes very silly mistakes on the shooting form, release or just miss aiming) but in general I was doing good. The official practice day was a windy one, a little bit of rain kept us wet and I wasn't feeling good. One of my very big mistakes in competitions of this sort is overthinking every single situation, I kept thinking what is happening, why I am not doing as good as I was doing in practice now that the competition is coming closer, and for whoever knows these things, you can't be thinking like this. Stress and overthinking will hurt athletes concentration, which in turn will make it more possible to do mistakes, which in turn will get you angry at your shooting and this chain of events is going to destroy your competition. Sadly, this happened to me in this competition. I kept doubting myself and by doing that I destroyed every small chance I had of doing good. My coach for years has been telling me that I am a good archer I just need self confidence (which is kinda funny since in my everyday life I am very confident, sometimes I think of myself as a bit cocky, but I lose this ''ability'' when I am shooting), I know he is right but at that moment I had no idea what to do. The competition day came quickly and I wasn't ready. I didn't do well at all, actually I did so poorly that I beat my worst records on that day. Needless to say I felt like sh*t. There comes a time in ones career, when the doubts if you're good enough start creeping and 'thoughts' start coming. Anyways you have to work to get past these thoughts and work on yourself and eventually you'll get better.




Copenhagen: This is a city that no matter how hard I try to explain to my friends and family I still fall short, I never stop trying though. I was so impressed with everything there, from the people who are very kind, to the buildings which weren't huge, to the large number of bicycles and pedestrians, everything seemed to be in the proper place, I don't think I saw anything which I said, this could be better. The hotel where we stayed was quite spectacular, the food was good (I must mention that it wasn't the best food but it was good enough), the rooms were spacious and with very good showers, the elevator was quick and I don't think we ever had to wait to get on it. This was only a part of Cpenhagen, I thought I was impressed but I didn't realize that I still haven't seen anything.
The city centre of Copenhagen was and still is one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life. The river running through the city, the old buildings preserved to perfection, the moving bridges (first time in my life I witnessed the bridge opening up for a boat to go through it), an amazing square with lots of shops, magicians on the street, street musicians, singers and dancers, it had everything. You don't have enough time to go through all these places, everything is better compared to the last thing you saw and strangely enough it wasn't very loud at all, everything seemed at peace. Probably, the best memory from the city was the trip we took with a ship through and around the city. This was one of those exciting moments, which are very difficult to explain with words so I will not even try, it is an experience worth living and I would suggest to anyone that is able to take a trip to Copenhagen DON'T LEAVE WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE CITY ON A BOAT.




This was among my worst experiences shooting wise, but among my best experiences with the team and having fun in the city. I wish every city where we go is as clean and people are as hospitable as they were in Denmark. This is deffinitely going to be  a trip to remember the rest of my life.

p.s. Currently I am in a training camp, preparing for a large competition and I am shooting very good. I will also add some pictures when I get back home, since I am writing from a small notebook and it is very difficult to get the pictures.

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