For about 14 years, I’ve been practicing archery, yet I had never been to the World Cup in Nîmes. A few archers from the club where I started used to go, and according to them, it was quite a big event. I never imagined I would go there myself!

Nîmes is a beautiful city in the south of France, near Avignon and Montpellier. The city boasts several artifacts from the Roman Empire, such as an arena, the Maison Carrée, and the well-preserved Pont du Gard aqueduct, located just outside of Nîmes.

Next to all the beautiful buildings and history, you can find the Parc Expo in Nîmes, where the yearly World Cup will be held. This year marks the 27th time the tournament has been organized.

The Nîmes Archery Tournament is a three-day event where the best archers from all over the world come to compete for the title of Champion! This year, there were 5 sessions for archers to qualify for the finals: three on Friday and two on Saturday. During the finals, archers will compete in brackets. If there are 32 archers in the finals, the 1st-ranked archer will face the 32nd-ranked, the 2nd-ranked will face the 31st-ranked, and so on. Each winner will then compete against the winner of another match, continuing until only four archers remain. The winner of each of these two matches will advance to the golden final, while the other two archers will compete for bronze.

The expo this weekend isn’t just for shooting. While you’re there, you can visit the many stands of sponsors of the tournament and archers. Here you can talk to the manufacturers, archers and sales people of all your favorite archery brands. They present you their latest products and merch!

Nîmes Tournament has a few specialities, compared to other tournaments. One of them is their Secondary Tournament. This small competition was held on Sunday morning for all archers who didn’t make the final matches. Each 1st, 2nd and 3rd place would get a small price.

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For me, going to Nîmes was quite a last-minute decision. This year, I want to photograph more archery tournaments, especially some of the big ones in Europe, so I decided I had to go to Nîmes. Because it was a bit last minute, my travel options were limited. I traveled there with a friend who was competing, so we left on Friday. Because of that, I wasn’t able to catch the first three sessions. On Saturday, I spent the entire day at the venue, moving between the main hall and the second large hall next to it. It wasn’t until Sunday that I realized there was a third hall… whoops!

On Sunday I was mostly present at the finals in the main hall. These finals were filmed with live commentary and you could stream them on the Archery+ channel. I was very happy that I got a press accreditation, because now I was able to get a lot closer to the archers for some fine shots!

Now that the weekend is over, I’ve been selecting photos. With just over 5000 photos of two days, it’s quite the job.

A first set of photos of Saturday is present on my Flickr page. I still have to go through the photos of the Sunday finals (about 3000 photos!).

For more information about the Nîmes Tournament, you can visit their website.
All the scores of Nîmes Tournament can be found on ianseo.

Unfortunately I will not go to the United States for Lancaster, the Chicago Open or the Vegas Shoot. Maybe some day 🙂