TradTech Archery will be well represented by U.S. archers at the 2017 World Games in Wroclaw, Poland, in late July.

Barebow archers John Demmer of Pennsylvania and Jenifer Stoner of Virginia both will be shooting TradTech limbs on their Gillo risers in the competition scheduled for July 20-30.

"They're really amazing," Stoner said of her TradTech RC Extreme carbon/foam limbs. "They're extremely smooth pulling, and because of that, I was able to go to a higher weight for shooting at longer distances."

Demmer, who uses the TradTech RC carbon/wood limbs, said he likes the feel of his bow with the TradTech limbs attached, and – especially for field archery – he likes the increased arrow speed the limbs produce.

"They feel like well-built, solid, decent limbs," he said.

For barebow archers, there is no higher level of competition than the World Games.

"This is our Olympics," Demmer said.

Held every four years – just like the Olympics – the World Games is a multi-sport event that features many off-beat competitions, such as canoe polo, hang gliding, finswimming and tug-of-war, just to name a few.

Archery, of course, is part of the Olympics, but only recurve bows with sights and stabilizers are used to shoot at 122 cm targets from a distance of 70 meters.

In the World Games, the archery competition includes classes for archers using Olympic recurves, compound bows and barebows. And field archery is the chosen game for barebow and Olympic recurve archers. (Compound archers will compete in standard, target archery.)

Field archery is like 3-D archery, where archers walk a course and shoot at targets of different sizes, placed at different distances. On the first day of the World Games competition, the field archers will shoot three arrows apiece at 24 targets at unknown distances out to 50 meters. On the second day, they will shoot another course of targets, but the distances will be marked.

Only 12 archers from 10 countries can qualify for the men's and women's divisions of the barebow and recurve competitions. Spots for the represented nations were earned last year at the World Archery Field Championships in Dublin.

The top nine nations represented by the competing archers each earned a spot for the World Games, with the No. 1 finishing male and female archers earning two spots each for their respective countries, and the host nation –Poland – reserving two spots in each division as well.

Demmer and Stoner both shot well enough in the world championships to earn spots in the World Games for the U.S. But that didn't guarantee they would be the ones to represent the U.S. at the World Games.

They had to earn those spots at the 2017 U.S. National Field Championships in Darrington, Wash., in June. Demmer won the men's competition there, and Stoner won the women's division to secure their World Games team positions.

The other members of the U.S. World Games archery team are: Heather Koehl (women's recurve); Brady Ellison and Vic Wunderle (men's recurve); Kris Schaff and Reo Wilde (men's compound); and Lexi Keller and Cassidy Cox (women's compound).

Both Demmer and Stoner said they realize they will face stiff competition at the World Games. While it's not too well known in the U.S., barebow archery is wildly popular and highly competitive across Europe. Italy, Sweden and Spain – among others – always have highly-skilled barebow archers.

Demmer said he hopes his and Stoner's participation in the World Games will shine some light on barebow archery in the U.S. Known for wearing superhero T-shirts, colorful shorts and other wild clothing in competition, Demmer is always striving to promote barebow archery.

"It's fun," Demmer said. "And, as a group, barebow archers always seem to have fun together. Why wouldn't someone want to be part of that?"

One of the aspects of barebow archery that Stoner said others might find appealing is that a few bad shots won't necessarily take an archer out of contention in a competition.

"We're all going to have those shots," she said. "So you're never really out of it. And I think when you take away that pressure to be perfect, you can be more relaxed."

TradTech Archery is a division of Lancaster Archery Supply that produces high-quality, ILF risers and limbs for traditional and barebow archery.