Conditions at Greeba were not as pleasant as they first appeared on Sunday. Clear blue skies and sunshine lulled everyone into thinking that shooting conditions were perfect and scores would consequently be high. This did not prove to be the case, the sun was shining but the there was a cold wind that lowered the temperature and made those who had turned up in shorts wish they hadn’t. The round of the day was a WA1440 (90/70/50/30m for the gents and 70/60/50/30m for the ladies) but as it was only seven archers completed it, with eight others electing to shoot other rounds. The Juniors shot rounds appropriate to their age group.
After health issues confined him to half day shoots, Billy Lightfoot managed to put in a full day’s archery but wished he hadn’t bothered. A poor start at 90m effectively ended his challenge from get go, leaving him 53 points off the lead. Billy accidently put an arrow into the wrong target at 50m which did not improve his temper and even though he out scored Rhys and Dave Moore at both the 70 and 30m distances it was nowhere near enough to save him from last place. Rhys Moore started well but unaccountably had a miss at 70m and recorded another below par score, for him, at 50 but still broke the 1300 barrier to take the win by a considerable margin.
In the Ladies Compound, a week of gardening duties took its toll on Joy Gough and she stopped at lunchtime having completed a Long Metric round of 70 and 60m.
In the Gents Recurve Danny Cowin and Dave Berry went head to head once again. Neither man had a good 90m with Danny missing twice and Dave six times. The 70m was slightly better, Dave kept all of his arrows on target while Danny had another miss but was 15 points ahead at the halfway stage. After lunch the wind became difficult to handle as it gusted first one way, then the other or just died completely. Danny dealt with the condtions better than Dave and rode out the winner by 67 points.
In the Ladies Recurve Barbara Harris had a total of six misses over the course of the day, four of them at the 50m distance where, for some reason, she had her sight arm in completely the wrong position. Jane Berry had a much better time of things adding an impressive 174 points to her pb for the round.
Elder statesman Pete Mumford elected to shoot a Metric 1 round and after forgetting to shoot one of his arrows the previous week, he was careful to shoot the full compliment on Sunday. Unfortunately, whilst he remembered his arrows, he kept forgetting the score sheets and had to do the walk of shame a couple of times.
Junior archers Tilly Ashton, Lily Priestnal and Toby Young were also in action all day. Tilly and Lily found the chilly wind difficult to deal with but Toby Young, shooting a Metric 1, added 17 points to his pb.
Results WA1440 Gents Compound – 1.R.Moore 143/1315/56/22, 2.D.Moore 143/1264/44/16, 3.B.Lightfoot 143/1247/48/21. Gents Recurve – 1.D.Cowin 141/1002/13/3, 2.D.Berry 136/935/9/2. Ladies Recurve – 1.B.Harris 138/997/16/8, 2.J.Berry 137/912/12/4pb. Metric I – Gents Compound – P.Mumford 144/1276/40/11. Jnr Gents Recurve – T.Young 139/941/10/4pb. Jnr Ladies – T.Ashton (Metric III) 142/1034/10/5. L.Priestnal (Metric V) 144/1206/7/11.
Also shooting – Long Metric I – Gents Compound – C.Moore 72/610/13/1. Ladies Compound – J.Gough 72/583/6/3. Short Metric – Gents Recurve – 1.E.Lutes 71/461/5/2, 2.G.Leather 67/362/0/0, 3.R.Mitchell 66/359/2/0, 4.D.Smith 56/284/0/0pb. Gents Longbow – G.Makepeace-Warne 47/237/1/1pb.
Isle of Man Archery Club 