There was a lot of archery action across the weekend and beyond as the Outdoor season moved into August.
Johnathan Gordon continued to enjoy his off island shooting as he travelled to Cheshire for a two-day competition. The results were broken down into Cheshire archers and visitors, with Johnathan taking the win for the visitors in the Day 1 WA1440. Glorious sunshine was tempered by rather windy conditions which made things difficult especially after the lunch break when all the archers had to switch to the smaller Compound faces for the last two distances. This was Johnathan’s first experience of this format, and it saw him put four arrows wide of the target. Nevertheless, he finished first among the visiting archers and his score put him second overall.
Day 2 comprised a double WA720. The wind had dropped to a light breeze for the morning session, which faded to dead calm by the afternoon. Johnathan took advantage of the excellent conditions to post a personal best score for the round and take the silver medal. A very profitable weekend.
On home soil at the weekend a dozen archers turned up to shoot various metric rounds. Rhys Moore took the win over Westy Westmorland and Les Corran in the Gents compound WA1440. Aalin George, fresh from her holidays, defeated Caitlin Gelder in the Ladies Compound division.
On the Recurve side of things, Matt Smith was the Gent to shoot all day and so took the win unopposed. In the Ladies Recurve Erin Hainge outclassed Emily O’Hara to take the win by a margin of 160 points. Ricard Hainge took on Tom Rogers in a Long Metric (90 & 70m), with Richard running out the comfortable winner. David Craine tackled a Long Metric 1 (70m) and Peter Howland put his Longbow through its paces in a Metric 122-50.
Erin Hainge also travelled across to attend the Youth Festival – several days of shooting over the week that comprised a qualifying round (a WA720 at 60m) which determined which teams and pairs the juniors would be put into for the rest of the shoot. Erin made a confident start but a problem with her clicker saw her put an arrow wide of the target and it took a while to get it adjusted back into the right place. Scoring over the rest of the round gradually improved but the windy conditions made for a challenging shoot and Erin ended up qualifying in 18th place out of 31 archers. The team event (teams of 3) in the afternoon session did not go according to plan. While Erin shot strongly, one of her teammates missed with 4 arrows out of 6, and the team lost the round 6-0.
The next day started with the mixed pairs and saw Erin partnered by an inexperienced archer Oscar. With Erin anchoring the pair and encouraging Oscar, they took a 4-0 lead but the opposing team fought back to take it to a one arrow shoot off. Both boys on the team shot 4’s, but Summer on the opposing team put her arrow on the spider (dead centre) which Erin couldn’t match and her pair were eliminated.
In the afternoon session Erin competed in the u18 Girls individuals. The wind had picked up by this point, gusting in different directions, which added to the challenge. Erin put in some strong shooting in her first match winning it 7-1 to take her into the next round where she faced the 2nd seed. Erin took the first set, lost the second, tied the third and lost the fourth by just 1 point. This levelled the scores and the match went to a one arrow shoot off. Her opponent got her arrow away first, straight into the 10. Erin responded with a strong shot, but it went into the 9 and her Youth Festival was over. A good experience and a great time.
WA 1440 –
Open Compound: 1.R.Moore 144/1365/106, 2.A.Westmorland 143/1309/80, 3.L.Corran 144/1227/39. Ladies Compound: 1.A.George 144/1341/85, 2.C.Gelder 144/1252/48.
Open Recurve: 1.M.Smith 138/943/16. Ladies Recurve: 1.E.Hainge 142/1130/25, 2.E.O’Hara 139/970/17.
Long Metric –
Open Recurve: 1.R.Hainge 71/530/8, 2.T.Rodgers 66/415/3.
Long Metric I –
Open Recurve: 1.D.Craine 63/294/0.
Metric 122-50 –
Open Longbow: 1.P.Howland 40/169/0.
Isle of Man Archery Club 