Archery History & Trivia
A splash of archery heritage just for fun!
Queenie Newall
Archer Queenie Newall (Sybil Fenton Newall) won a gold medal for England at the 1908 Olympics (held in London). Fifty-three years old at the time, she remains the oldest female gold medalist ... well, in an individual event.
1904 Olympics
In 1904, at the St. Louis Olympics, Lida Peyton “Eliza” Pollock (aka Jessie Pollock) (almost sixty-four at the time) won two bronze medals in individual archery rounds and a team gold.
She remains the oldest American woman to have competed in the Olympics. With that team gold, Ms. Eliza is the overall oldest female gold medalist.
Alice Legh
A second ankle biter for Queenie’s glory is that, at the 1908 Olympics, Queenie didn’t have to face Alice Legh, another of Britain’s great archers.
Alice didn’t compete in the 1908 Games; she wanted to focus on defending her national-champion title (in contention the week after the Olympics). At Nationals, she sorta trounced Queenie. The impressive Ms. Alice didn’t retire from archery until 1922, when she was sixty-seven.
Ishi,
Pope, and Young
In 1911, Dr. Saxton Pope met Yahi tribal member Ishi in California; Ishi taught Pope the secrets of bow hunting (many people attribute the advent of modern bow hunting to this pair, who also shot with Art Young).
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Pics from left to right (desktop)/top to bottom (mobile):
Ishi
Saxton Pope
Art Young
The Artistic Advent of Camouflage
While it may sound improbable, the camouflage patterns that bedeck so much archery gear have their roots in modern art, like Picasso's cubist works! In World War I, France and Germany used modern artists to paint machinery, artillery, and equipment to disguise it. You can read more here (scroll down to the entry about the book Picasso's War).