Balloon-Popping Archery Officially Amazing

# Officially, officially, officially...

# Amazing! #

SCREAMS

Hello, and welcome to Officially Amazing: The Best Of The Bunker.

Coming up, some amazing archery courtesy of Paralympic

athlete John Walker.

But first, our competitors tee off at a terrifically tricky

challenge in...

-AL:

-Previously on Officially Competitive.

Cherry obliterated the competition in a record that

used chopsticks to move food.

Weird. Leaving Sizzler languishing

at the bottom of the table.

Today, they tackle the record for...

Before we tee off, here are the rules.

Commercially available balls and tees must be used, and both

must be in a container at the start of the attempt.

The record must take place on a surface of artificial grass.

And once the 10 tees on the 10 balls,

they must stand for

five seconds without falling off.

If they do it in 14.5 seconds or under, it's a world record.

First on the fairway is Mr Cherry.

Mr Cherry, are you ready?

WHIP CRACKS

WHOOSH!

The traditional Japanese air golf preparation from Cherry.

YELLS

One, two, three...

Ooh!

-GLASS BREAKS

-Ah.

-Ah.

Come on!

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS SHANTHA:

-Good.

Three, two, one...

-..go!

-AIRHORN BLARES

DISTANT CANNON FIRE

It's a nervous start from the big man. Those hands are shaking!

HARUKA SPEAKS IN JAPANESE

Nerves are kryptonite to Mr Cherry.

He's struggling with his tees and it's hard to watch.

This is truly terrible tee teetering.

HARUKA SPEAKS IN JAPANESE

It's all going wrong for Cherry-san, and the crowd can't believe it.

Al, they've never seen the great man flounder before.

Oh, this is a nightmare!

And now, the tees are knocking each other off.

HARUKA SPEAKS IN JAPANESE MR CHERRY YELPS

And that's it. Will they hold?

Five, four, three, two, one...

Yes! But that was not vintage Cherry.

Have we come up against an impossible task?

Time for my tiny T Rex to show them how it's done.

-Go.

-AIRHORN BLARES

And Ray is away. Come on!

It's a bumbling start, though, Al.

Ray's tees are diving right off the ball.

WHEE!

But Ray's fingers are fast and furious,

replacing those slipping tees at an astonishing rate.

His ambidextrous abilities

are working to full effect here.

Impressive stuff.

-Stop!

-Five, four...

Sizzler's looking worried.

..three, two, one.

Glorious golfing grapplage, and he knows it.

Last to tee off is the Sizzloid.

-Go.

-AIRHORN BLARES

Oh, a swift start,

and Steve has chosen a lankier tee for his attempt.

Will that make a difference?

Steve's stacking is sublime.

Apart from that one.

We are in the Sizzler sweet spot.

An infuriating fiddly task crushed by a superhuman focus.

Oh, but Steve's attempt at a double-hander did not pay off.

Come on, Sizz!

-Stop.

-AIRHORN BLARES

-Five, four, three...

-Will they stay stacked?

..two, one.

-Yeah!

-All right.

-Nice!

-Really good.

-Nice job.

A flawless flurry of tee balancing from the Sizz,

apart from those flaws.

We've witnessed three beguiling balancing acts.

But did anyone beat the target of 14.5 seconds?

Shantha, please tell me, do we have a record?

-No, we don't.

-Oh!

Let's move on to the all-important competitive point. Shantha?

Well, in third place, with a time of 48.55 seconds...

WHOOSH!

Over three times longer than the record target.

..is Mr Cherry.

Cherry in last place?! Such a rare occurrence, he can't compute.

WHIP CRACKS

And in first place, with a time of 18.65 seconds...

-..is Steve!

-Yeah!

-Yes!

High five! Yeah!

Discombobulated scenes as Sizzler celebrates by what can only

be described as actual running.

Woo!

Yeah, he's going to need a long breather after that.

Sizzler beat Ray by 5.63 seconds to leave

the competition level on two points

and one world record each.

Incredible!

Now for some amazing accuracy.

This is astonishing archer John Walker.

In 2012, he was watching the Paralympics on TV.

Just four years later, he was at Rio 2016 and won double Paralympic gold.

He's...

But can John become Officially Amazing champion as he attempts

the record for...?

Here are the rules.

12 balloons must be attached to the outer ring of a standard

archery target. The balloons must be burst clockwise and in order.

And the archer must be a whopping 18 metres from the target.

That's almost as long as two double-decker buses.

HORN BEEPS

For the world record,

John must burst all 12 balloons

in three minutes or under.

Shooting arrows is ridiculously dangerous,

but John is a highly trained expert.

John only has partial use of his right arm,

so has to load the arrow and hold the bow with his left hand.

He then attaches the bowstring to a clip on his shoulder harness,

which will be released by one small tug on this ball.

By stretching the bow forward, he draws the string,

takes aim, and...

..bull's-eye.

76% of the audience are predicting

a victory for the Paralympic champ.

What do you think?

John has requested complete silence in the room. I'll find this hard.

Time starts when John fires his first arrow.

AIRHORN BLARES

And it's game on.

John gets off to a great start

but he also encounters a few problems readying his bow,

which loses him valuable seconds.

Even so, he hits balloon...

..after balloon...

..after balloon.

But can he score a clean sweep?

AIRHORN BLARES Yeah!

Look at that!

Astronomical arrow accuracy from the Paralympian.

Not one missed shot. But was it a world record?

-You needed a time of three minutes or better.

-Yeah.

And that attempt...

...was 3:07.

-OK.

-Oh!

Discombobulation! Seven seconds from glory.

Those tiny fumbles proved pivotal.

Can John make it round fault-free in attempt two?

AIRHORN BLARES

And it's another perfect start.

John's shooting with pinpoint precision.

And he's hooking much more cleanly this time. Come on, John!

He makes it look easy, but to maintain this

level of accuracy over 18 metres is phenomenally hard.

The yellow glasses eliminate the glare from our lights.

And the blinker is to remove all distractions

from John's peripheral vision.

I'm not sure what distractions there are here, though.

John's powering through.

Just one...

..balloon...

..left.

AIRHORN BLARES

And boom, another perfect run.

It looked great, but was under three minutes?

On that attempt, it was a time...

..of two minutes and 43 seconds.

-You've got a world record title!

-Yeah!

A remarkable display of world-class bowmanship.

Not many people can better double Paralympic gold

but, John Walker, you just did.

And finally today, meet the excellently named Ben, our audience

member who chooses Ray and Cherry to attempt our final challenge...

A wise choice, which puts the two best athletes

on the bum-scooting track and Sizzler in the Gunge Tank of Doom.

The target for this bum-bouncing 10-metre relay

is a speedy 25 seconds.

And Ray and Cherry are quick, but not quite quick enough.

They're just 1.89 seconds too slow.

A shame, because they almost broke the record, but also glorious,

because it consigns the Sizzler to another gunging.

Oh, I could watch this all day. But I can't, we've run out of time.

See you again.