This year, the German University Half Marathon Championships took place as part of the ADAC Marathon in Hanover. After picking up our race packs on Saturday (see above), we were given a short welcome by the university sports department. We then watched the 5 km elite race to get some motivation before lacing up our running shoes again in the evening to loosen up our legs before the competition. After filling up our carbohydrate reserves with a delicious pizza, it seemed that there was nothing that could go wrong.
On the day of the competition, we were of course still a little nervous and tense. Would we achieve the goals we had set out for ourselves?
At 10:40 a.m., the starting signal was given for the main field and all DHM participants. The adrenaline and our (as yet!) fresh legs ensured that the first few kilometres flew by.
When our legs started to get a little heavier, the numerous spectators along the route created a breathtaking atmosphere that made us forget the physical exertion.
In the end, not only did we have a lot of fun, but we were also satisfied with the results. Hannes secured 15th place in the university rankings with a new personal best time of 1:19:09. Ole fought his way to 21st place and a new personal best time of 1:23:41.
DHM Archery in Karlsruhe
After Niklas had already enjoyed participating in the DHM archery competition in Göttingen last year, Niklas and Anja travelled to Karlsruhe for this year's DHM. Niklas' family travelled there as his fan club. The two-day competition began on Saturday morning with the rookie (beginner) competition, followed by the qualifying rounds for the DHM and alumni classes. On Sunday morning, the knockout rounds of the DHM classes and the mixed team competition followed.
With only seven months of shooting experience, Anja competed in the rookie women's class, in which archers with up to four years of experience were allowed to participate, and even achieved a podium place. The rookies shot a total of 72 arrows in two rounds at a target 30 metres away (80 cm target face). On this target, 1 to 10 rings can be achieved. The centre of this target corresponds to 10 rings and is 8 cm in diameter. This means that the maximum number of rings that can be achieved is 720.
Niklas competed in the men's recurve category and thus shot a total of 72 arrows in two rounds in the qualifying round
at a target 70 metres away (122 cm target face). The 10 here has a diameter of 12.2 cm, which is as large as a CD.
The rookie competition at the DHM was Anja's very first archery tournament. That's why Niklas supported her with all her questions, from registration and bow inspection to the competition procedure, and cheered her on during her competition. During the warm-up, Anja initially had to find the right sight setting, as the weather conditions during the previous training sessions in Greifswald had been stormy and the lighting conditions in Karlsruhe were also different. However, Anja improved steadily during the first round and, after an even better second round, she finally achieved an excellent second place in the overall standings with 554 points, just three points behind the winner. Overall, the level of the 16 rookie women and 12 rookie men was high compared to last year and was strongly dominated by shooters from the University of Marburg. Anja is the only medal winner among the rookies and alumni who does not come from Marburg.
During free practice on Saturday morning, Niklas was able to warm up for the qualifying round on Saturday afternoon. During this round, he surpassed his result from the previous year by 91 rings and, with 603 rings, achieved sixth place out of fifteen participants in the men's recurve class. Exactly a quarter of his arrows landed in the CD-sized 10 (see photo, blue and yellow arrows). With this result, Niklas confidently qualified for the knockout round on Sunday morning, in which the eight best archers in his class were allowed to participate. The first match against the third-placed archer was unfortunately lost 4:6, despite a very good performance. Niklas' opponents deservedly won the two remaining matches 3:7 and 4:6. Despite moral support and cheering from Anja, Niklas unfortunately lost all his matches in the knockout round. Nevertheless, he still finished in a respectable eighth place, improving on last year's result by three places. As last year, the winner of the men's recurve knockout round was Michael from the University of Marburg. Overall, the field was close and the level, as with the rookies, was considerably higher than in the previous year.
We both really enjoyed the well-organised DHM. Next year, we would like to return to the DHM in archery. Niklas' goal is to further improve his results, and Anja hopes to be ready to participate in the normal DHM 70m competition next year.
DHM Archery – Report
On 29 and 30 June 2024, the DHM archery competition took place in Göttingen. It was my first DHM, but by no means my first tournament, as I had already gained several years of tournament experience as a youngster. I have been shooting again for 10 months now and want to enjoy tournaments again, and what better opportunity than the DHM. So it started on Saturday morning with a free training session, which I used to familiarise myself with the venue and build up some confidence with a few good arrows. After registration and bow inspection, the actual shooting started at 2:15 p.m. The start of the competition was okay, but two passes (a pass consists of 6 arrows, a competition consists of two rounds with 6 passes per round, the shooting distance is 70 metres) in the first round went very badly, however, so that after the first round I only had 240 points, which put me in 13th place out of 16 starters in the men's recurve class. I wasn't happy with that. After a much too short break, we moved on to the second round. At the beginning, I realised what had gone wrong in the first round: I hadn't been consistent enough with my technique. So, for the rest of the competition, I paid more attention to the parts of my technique that had been inconsistent, and lo and behold, things went much better. I finished the second round with 272 points, which was exactly my target. This allowed me to move up to 12th place.
That was the end of the first day of competition for me. I then watched the mixed team finals, in which a man and a woman form a team. After a long day, I returned to the hotel reasonably satisfied to rest up for the final shoot the next morning. That began on Sunday morning at 8:15 a.m. with the warm-up. The final round in archery works like a knockout round, with the first against the 16th, the second against the 15th, and so on. Since I was 12th in the qualifying round, I had to compete against the 5th place finisher in the qualifying round. In the final, only three arrows are shot per pass, and the person with more rings (that's what the points are called in archery) gets two set points, the loser of the set gets 0, and in the event of a tie, both get one. This continues until someone has 6 set points. So now I had to compete against the 5th-placed archer, and, as was to be expected, I promptly lost 6-0. I almost managed a draw in the second set; my arrow was only millimetres away from the next higher ring, but that wouldn't have changed the outcome of the match, it would only have delayed it. The nice thing about the DHM, however, is that all places are decided by shooting, which means that even the losers of the matches can continue shooting. I won the next matches 7:3, lost 4:6 (after leading 4:0) and won 6:2. This allowed me to improve my position by one place compared to the qualification round. The winner was Michael from Marburg, who was in a league of his own this weekend and had already led the qualification round by a large margin. I really enjoyed the tournament. I had good conversations with several people from different universities, including the shooters from Fulda and Munich. Next year, I will definitely go to the DHM again, with the goal of improving on this year's result.
