Three cheers for Paralympic archer and Sugru-user Murray Elliot competing today!

Remember when we posted about sugru in the Olympics? Murray Elliot, who's an archer, got in touch with us and told us that he's going to be in the Paralympics and he's using sugru on his equipment as well. He kindly shared his story with us.

"As an archer and a member of the British Paralympic Team soon to complete in London, I’m always looking for ways to improve my kit. One way that has made a big difference to my shooting is a sugru hack I made to my finger tab over a year ago.

“Finger tab?” - We use a piece of leather on our fingers to protect them from the harshness of the string. Without this vital piece of equipment our fingers would not be able to withstand the rigours of shooting. In particular, it has an important function of ensuring consistent placement of our fingers on the string. In a sport where you are shooting arrows at the target 70 meters away and where the middle is the size of a CD, every fraction of a millimeter, every fraction of a degree, counts.

That black blob between my index and middle fingers is my sugru hack. It’s been on there over a year and it’s still going strong after may tens of thousands of arrows shot, and I’m so confident in it’s robustness that this is the same tab I will use when shooting in London this year. Here are some other photos of the tab to give you some perspective:

The spacer I had was insufficient to prevent me from pinching the arrow when making those vital pressure shots in a head to head (this cost me a Gold medal in at an international last year) but Sugru has solved all that. I’ve extended the spacer I was using , broadened it and made it incredibly comfortable to shoot."

Murray also used sugru to make his alarm clock more Olympic village friendly: "One of the issues in London will be the black out curtains in the room and also sharing a room with others – this means I will want to get to the alarm in the morning and switch it off quickly in the dark. My alarm clock has a smooth profile and finding the off button was tricky, so a quick mod gave me the solution."

The picture is a bit blurry, but it's a great thought, what a considerate room mate.

Murray Elliot is competing in the ranking round today, actually right now while I'm writing this. We're crossing our fingers that we can see him over the following days and in the final on September 3. Good luck & thanks for sharing this, Murray!