Welcome to Wales and enjoy our British weather. Well, I must admit we had a great morning today, and lots of people checking their sights at the 'Criced' field. That is not odd spelling, that is Welsh for cricket and we have set a goal to learn a Welsh word every day. Writing Welsh is easy as pie; just add lots of syllables, a 'y' here and there, and an occasional double d. And then it looks like this sign.

Another usual issue with big tournaments is luggage. We have seen worse, but it is still annoying, especially for the concerning archers, to be here without their material. Nicolas Gaudron is missing his bow, Christophe Clément was smart enough to pack his sparebow in his suitcase, quite nice since his bowcase did not arrive. Debora Gambetti is without her gear in Wales and also one of the judges, Schandorf Vang, is missing his luggage.

We had some issues during the material inspection today. A recurve archer had a cross hair with an extra circle in his sightpin and the judges found it should be deemed illegal according to the rules. No-one here would know how he could take advantage of his additional cross haired ring, since we all believe this would be out of focus or even invisible whilst aiming. And I think that includes most of the judges.

Several barebow archers had a problem with their added weights to the risers. The rulebook states a weight can be added, attached to the riser. If you have a weight that is screwed on an insert, and the insert is subsequently mounted on the riser, the weight is technically not attached to the riser itself. It is attached to a piece of metal, and that piece of metal is screwed into the riser. Again, if we look into the hearts of the judges at the inspection, I reckon they would agree with us that such a setup would not give an advantage to an archer. It would even adhere to the intention of the rule: one can add weight to a riser. It is however not exactly according to the rule and hence, the judges concluded it was an illegal setup.

Another interesting thing was brought up during the captains meeting. We had a discussion about timing archers and the new three minute rule. If I summarize this discussion correctly, judges agreed with the teamcaptains' point of view that the rules about this issue should be interpreted as follows: if and when a judge thinks it is necessary a group should be timed, the judge will give a verbal warning to the archers stating he has a stopwatch and will be using it to measure the time it takes to shoot the target. If an archer is taking more time than 3 minutes, he or she will get a verbal warning and a written note with date and time on the back of his or her scorecard. If the archer meets another judge with a stopwatch, this judge will also be announcing he is using it to measure time and might subtract the highest scoring arrows when shooting takes more time than the allowed three minutes.

On a lighter note, the judges recognized the fact that the courses around Glyncornel are quite strenuous and they do not intent to act as the stopwatch police. A remark was made however, that exceeding the regular amount of time to shoot has been used in the past as a 'weapon' to distract opponents and get other competitors out of their rhythm. In those cases, judges will not hesitate to be strict about the three minute rule.

Rain is a serious concern for the competition. Judges will inspect the course early in the morning tomorrow and check if it is indeed safe to shoot. We keep our fingers crossed. It is raining quite a bit, and for quite some time now. The topsoil in the area will be soaked.

One teamcaptain asked at the end of the meeting if people on the campus could be quiet after 10 o'clock at night, so archers could have a good night's sleep. However, one of the officials decided to park the car next to the road below the hill, on its side, late in the evening. Archers were quiet all right this evening, unfortunately the accident and emergency staff present at the scene was not...