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ATHENS -- As the baking heat of a Greek summer afternoon turned toward evening, a freshening breeze drifted down from the distant mountains. It was a welcome relief for the handful of spectators but it left the athletes cursing under their collective breath.
Archers don't as a rule like wind and Butch Johnson likes it less than most archers.
"Oh, I know how to play the wind, but it's not my forte," said the Olympic veteran from Woodstock, Conn. "I'm probably one of the worst wind guys out here."
You wouldn't have known it from the scoreboard. A shaky start had left Johnson flirting with the bottom half of the draw in yesterday's ranking round but as the sun slowly dropped and the winds picked up, he incrementally improved his position with each six-arrow "end." With two ends (turns) left he was in 10th place and, despite unleashing a bad quiver with his final end, wound up in the top quarter of the 64-man draw at No. 16.
"I just started shooting a little better," Johnson said. "I had some problems earlier and I kind of figured it out."
Athletes asked about their prospects in most Olympic sports will sigh and tell you "it all depends on the draw," but in Olympic archery, the competitors determine their own seeding position, which was what yesterday's exercise was all about.
Getting a jump on an Olympiad which doesn't even officially open until this evening, the 64 men fired 72 volleys of arrows at targets set up 70 meters across a grassy field. First prize -- which went to South Korea's Dong-Hyun Im, who shot a world record 687 --- was the No. 1 seed in the 64-man elimination tournament which commences tomorrow at Panathinaiko Stadium.
The archers were playing the only game in town. (The 64-woman field shot for seeding position earlier in the day.) The ranking rounds took place at the Dekelia Archery Complex, near an airfield north of the host city. When it picks up again tomorrow, the bow-and-arrow squad will be competing in a venue originally constructed in 329 B.C. and renovated for the 1896 Olympics.
"If it's windy, the venue is going to be one of the worst places you could possibly shoot," Johnson said. "I was here for a test tournament last year. The wind comes in and it bounces around. It can be blowing one direction where you're standing and another at the target. All you can do is scratch your head at that one. I just hope it'll be reasonably calm."
ATHENS -- As the baking heat of a Greek summer afternoon turned toward evening, a freshening breeze drifted down from the distant mountains. It was a welcome relief for the handful of spectators but it left the athletes cursing under their collective breath.
Archers don't as a rule like wind and Butch Johnson likes it less than most archers.
"Oh, I know how to play the wind, but it's not my forte," said the Olympic veteran from Woodstock, Conn. "I'm probably one of the worst wind guys out here."
You wouldn't have known it from the scoreboard. A shaky start had left Johnson flirting with the bottom half of the draw in yesterday's ranking round but as the sun slowly dropped and the winds picked up, he incrementally improved his position with each six-arrow "end." With two ends (turns) left he was in 10th place and, despite unleashing a bad quiver with his final end, wound up in the top quarter of the 64-man draw at No. 16.
"I just started shooting a little better," Johnson said. "I had some problems earlier and I kind of figured it out."
Athletes asked about their prospects in most Olympic sports will sigh and tell you "it all depends on the draw," but in Olympic archery, the competitors determine their own seeding position, which was what yesterday's exercise was all about.
Getting a jump on an Olympiad which doesn't even officially open until this evening, the 64 men fired 72 volleys of arrows at targets set up 70 meters across a grassy field. First prize -- which went to South Korea's Dong-Hyun Im, who shot a world record 687 --- was the No. 1 seed in the 64-man elimination tournament which commences tomorrow at Panathinaiko Stadium.
The archers were playing the only game in town. (The 64-woman field shot for seeding position earlier in the day.) The ranking rounds took place at the Dekelia Archery Complex, near an airfield north of the host city. When it picks up again tomorrow, the bow-and-arrow squad will be competing in a venue originally constructed in 329 B.C. and renovated for the 1896 Olympics.
"If it's windy, the venue is going to be one of the worst places you could possibly shoot," Johnson said. "I was here for a test tournament last year. The wind comes in and it bounces around. It can be blowing one direction where you're standing and another at the target. All you can do is scratch your head at that one. I just hope it'll be reasonably calm."
Johnson was born in Worcester, grew up in Webster and works as the sales manager of an archery shop (Hall's Arrows) in Manchester, Conn. He owns an Olympic gold medal (from the team event in Atlanta eight years ago) and a bronze (from Sydney in 2000), and is participating in his fourth Olympics. At 38 (he will turn 39 the day after these Games end), Johnson was the oldest competitor on the field yesterday.
A Massachusetts-born Olympic archer might seem an anomaly but, said Johnson, but "there's actually quite a bit of archery in New England. The trouble is, people don't know about archery unless they're in it."
