It wasn’t easy choosing from the hundreds of Olympic recurve applicants wanting to test our new Griffin Vanes! But we picked some good ones, and we’re excited for you to get to know them.
Lauranne Desvignes “I’m 29 years old and I live near Dijon in France. I work in a hospital as a medical secretary. I’ve been practicing archery since 2003 and have participated in many French Championships, but one day I had a very strong target panic. It was so difficult to get through, but I succeeded with patience, strength and determination. After 7 years of target panic, I ended up finding my way back to the competition, and it has made me so happy! Now, I enjoy the moment and savor every arrow like it’s the last one. This test taught me a lot of things. It even allowed me to make one of my dreams come true: winning the gold medal at the National Indoor Championships. Now, I’m aiming for the next level – French Team and International Competitions!”
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Christian Stoddard “I am 15 years old and it is my first year shooting in the male cadet category. Archery is my love in life- from tuning to scoring to the amazing people I meet. I love to make archery equipment and I take my equipment very seriously, I want to be the best. I won the 2021 Arizona cup and I hope to make it on the national team this year. Super excited to try out the Griffin Vanes!”
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Meghan Robinson “I started shooting an Olympic recurve when I was 12. In 2015, just a year and a half after I started archery, I won bronze medals for both team and individual events at the outdoor French national championship. I also won bronze indoors in 2019. For the past two years I have also been shooting competitively for field and 3D with a compound bow, and participated in Run Archery events.”
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Steve Oakley “I’m an English man living in Michigan since 2014. I started shooting competitive single string archery in 2020. Previously I’d only hunted in two deer seasons with a compound bow. Some of my accomplishments are: – Two time NFAA Indoor National Trad class silver medalist, finished 10th in the WA online indoor tournament in Barebow class, two Traditional Archery Society World Championship buckles in Broadhead and Team and 2nd in Modern Longbow, Michigan Archery Association Trad and Barebow champion. I’m looking forward to competing with Barebow for ASA, IBO, MAA, IAA in 3D, Field & Hunter and Target (50m) during the summer.”
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Eleanor Brug. Eleanor was introduced to Olympic-style recurve archery as a teenager in Silicon Valley and was taught by Jon Ray. She is currently finishing up her PhD in Materials Science at the University of Cambridge. She won individual BUCS (UK university nationals) medals in both 2020 (indoor silver) and 2021 (outdoor bronze). She set up an archery lab at home during the first lockdown in order to experiment with arrow behavior, and puts educational high speed videos of arrows on Youtube.
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Erik Rowbotham. Erik has represented Scotland over the past 12 years earning 9 caps for Scotland (2009-present) and in that time has been crowned Triple Scottish Champion (Target Indoor, Target Outdoor and IFAA Outdoor) in the same year. He’s recently attempted Vegas and was the 2nd best British Recurve Archer in the Flights in 2018 (29th in Flight 1) upping his result from 3rd British Recurve Archer in the Flights (12th in Flight 1) the year before. Field Archery is what got Erik into the sport 22 years ago and he’s previously been a IFAA European Bronze medalist in 2013 in Sopron, Hungary; and currently holds the 3-day IFAA European & Scottish Indoor Record of 885/900 (3x IFAA Indoor Rounds/Worcester’s) set in 2012 when he won the IFAA European Indoors in Tallinn, Estonia. In his university days Erik won the 2010 British University Team Championships (BUTC) with Edinburgh University and accumulated 5 Individual (4 Bronze, 1 Silver) & 7 Team (6 Gold, 1 Silver) British University Championships (BUCS) medals (2007-2012).
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James Jackson “I started archery during my first year at university, in 2015, and quickly became passionate about the sport. During my first year at the club, I became a level 1 coach to help the university with beginners’ courses. In my second year, I was elected President, and travelled the country to compete for my university. During the summer holidays, I joined Elswood Bowmen in my local area to keep training while away from my university club. Since graduation, I have been shooting at Elswood as a full member. Before the virus, I competed most weekends and would travel around most of south England. I now shoot with Elswood and coach some of the regular members. I am hoping to return to competitions by the end of the year and see the friends I have not been able to see for the last 18 months.”
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Erich Mayerhofer “I live in the south of Vienna, Austria. And somehow I have always been a teacher, a pedagogue, deeply interested in human behavior, looking for the patterns underneath. Before being a member of the A.C. Sagittarius, I worked with committed people in a road racing bike club, we did just everything! Then I managed to become a cross country coach, working at a very competitive youth and junior-level. Therefore I entered the field of archery quite late, but I soon found out that my former experiences helped me a lot on the way becoming an archery coach.”
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Paige Blackwell “I am 15 years old and have been shooting Olympic Recurve for 2 years. I started shooting in the 3rd grade. This was after I tried archery at Girl Scout Camp and really enjoyed it. I have been shooting since then for fun but started competing 2 years ago. I had a very rocky start when I first started shooting Olympic Recurve but have overcome and gotten to be in the place where I am now. I have grown to have a love and affinity for the sport and community. As I continue to grow and improve in the sport, I enjoy trying out equipment/products to see how they improve my performance. I am a very busy person who participates in concert band, marching band, all honors or AP classes, Girl Scouts, and archery. I would like to start competing on an international level.”
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Want to know what the best fletchings are for your Olympic recurve arrows? Read our article
Learn more about the ideas, engineering, and testing that went into the introduction of the Griffin Vane