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There was IoM interest at the Junior National Outdoor Championships at Lilleshall at the weekend. The meeting was held over two days with a Fita Star round on the Saturday shot over metric distances and a National round shot over yards on the Sunday. Charlotte Harris was competing at the championships for the second year running, while Josh Trafford and Bradley Layton were making their debut.
Saturday’s shoot saw the Islands’ representatives competing in the Metric II category: three dozen arrows at each of four distances: 60, 50, 40 and 30m. The day before the shoot was marked by torrential rain and the forecast was for further showers over the weekend. Saturday started gloomily enough but the skies soon cleared and hats and sunscreen became the order of the day as the temperatures soared. The Juniors acquitted themselves well. Charlotte recorded a Junior Master Bowman score which saw her finish in 8th place. Bradley added 54 points to his personal best score to finish 14th and Josh added a terrific 125 points to his pb to finish 15th.
Sunday saw the IoM Juniors competing in the Bristol II round: six dozen arrows at 60 yards, four dozen at 50 yards and two dozen at 40 yards. The weather was much the same as Saturday except for a very brief and light shower of rain. Most of the archers did not bother with waterproofs and many found the rain rather soothing on the sunburn they had picked up the day before. Harris was disappointed with the last couple of ends she shot but again recorded a Junior Master Bowman score which put her in 9th place. Josh Trafford was suffering from stiff shoulders being unaccustomed to shooting two days in a row. He had a slow start but stuck to it to finish 19th. Bradley Layton improved on his previous best score for the round by 31 points to finish 14th again.
Scores JNOC: Metric II - Junior Gents Recurve – Bradley Layton 1054 0 0pb, Josh Trafford 957 0 0pb. Junior Ladies Recurve Charlotte Harris 1040 16 5. Bristol II - Junior Gents Recurve Bradley Layton 141 987 46pb, Josh Trafford 143 925 40. Junior Ladies Recurve Charlotte Harris 142 1012 47.
At Greeba the rest of the club’s archers shot only in the morning. The weather was great but the wind got up a few times when least expected. The round of the day was a 70/50m. The Compound archers shot 72 arrows at 50m and the Recurve archers shot the same number of arrows at 70m. In the Compound division Billy Lightfoot and Pete Mumford engaged in a neck and neck battle which saw Lightfoot overturn a 5 point deficit going to the final dozen to win by 1 point. Colin Moore also shot the round but was bedding in a new string which caused him to have a couple of misses. Thomas Bott, Danny Cowin and Tony Hartley shot in the Recurve division, they all recorded misses but Thomas came out on top.
The junior Recurve archers shot Metric rounds according to their age groups.
Results: Gents Compound – 1. Billy Lightfoot 72 620 16 3, 2. Pete Mumford 72 619 12 4, 3. Colin Moore 70 600 16 2. Ladies Compound – Joy Gough 72 602 13 6. Gents Recurve – 1. Thomas Bott 70 433 2 0, 2. Danny Cowin 65 404 2 1pb, 3. Tony Hartley 68 369 1 0.
Junior Gents Recurve: Short Metric III- 1. Jack Tyrer 69 455 4 0, 2. Joseph Reaney 61 369 1 0. Short Metric IV James Hill 70 523 9 6.
Sarah Rigby has won the Gold Medal, along with a Bronze, at the Commonwealth Regional Archery Championships held in Belfast this weekend. She was accompanied by Dave Moore back in Commonwealth mode, only in a different sport from his previous Commonwealth tournaments. The Northern Ireland Archery Society played host to this year’s event, an annual tournament approved by the Commonwealth Games panel as a medium to lobby them to include archery in future games.
With many of the home nations in attendance including very strong teams from England & Scotland which included many of the current Great Britain archery squad, it was always going to be a tough competition of the highest calibre.
The event commenced on Saturday, with a WA1440 round. The results being decided on the total scores from 144 arrows shot over the course of the whole day at four distances. Dave Moore had an incredible day – he started off by adding 13 points to his personal best for the 90metre distance, by lunchtime he was lying in 6th position. The afternoon laid truth to the old adage “four seasons in one day” as after the blistering sunshine, came not only rain, but hailstones, thunder and lightning (during which shooting had to be stopped whilst it passed) and back to sunshine to end the day with an equalled personal best for Dave with a total score of 1272. Sarah held well, and spent most of the day trading points with England’s Nichola Simpson and Pauline Burfitt for the lead with 1 point each between first and third place. Unfortunately a fletching detached itself mid-flight from one of Sarah`s arrows at the 50metre distance, costing her 10 points and ultimately the silver medal so had to settle for Bronze this time.
With a score to settle on day 2 Sarah went in to 50metre ranking round determined to make up for Saturday’s disappointment. After a blistering first dozen of 119/120 the wind once again put in an appearance to any hopes of continuing on such an amazing pace. After the 72 arrow round Sarah was seeded in second place behind England’s Pauline Burfitt, with Dave Moore qualifying in the gents division in 19th place for the Head 2 Head eliminations. Dave won his first match against 15th seeded Martin Krusche from Scotland 136 to Martin’s 132, then headed into the 1/8 match against England’s Neil Bridgewater – he held his own brilliantly against the No 2 seed & GBR international, only being pipped by 3 points. Neil went on to win the event but had to work hard to get past Dave.
Up next were the quarter finals with Sarah Rigby qualifying so well giving her byes straight through to this round. Her first win was over Scotland’s Elayne McLean 134-130, lining her up for a tough semi-final against England’s and GBR International Christie-Lee Ravenscroft, a brilliant battle ensued, with the lead trading places over the course of the whole match, culminating in Sarah finding a handful of 10’s on the last end to take the match 139-138 to take her into the Gold Medal final against another GBR International Pauline Burfitt.
With Scotland’s ladies being all knocked out at this point Sarah found herself up against England with a whole team of Scots supporting her for this match. Dave Moore sent arrow by arrow updates back to the club at home allowing them to follow the match live via Facebook.
After an appeal by all the women’s finalists to the judges to get the match underway after a delay had been announced, which would have risked Sarah having to forfeit her Gold Medal to catch the flight back home, Sarah took control of the match from the off, taking a 5 point lead after the first end of 3 arrows, a lead that was only to increase as the match progresses, Pauline took back one point on the 3rd end but was pressured into a miss after Sarah opened the door a little with a loose arrow scoring only 7 points as a gust of wind blew her off aim. The final end saw Sarah finish the match with a further increase on her lead winning the Gold medal by a clear 14 points – a veritable landslide in archery terms. Sarah commented “After such a disappointing end to Saturday, it was a great feeling to win on Sunday. To know that the best in the country have to bring their “A” game to try to beat you is something I will never get used to”
