It was another WA18 this week but this time it was a handicap. No one was happy about the idea, least of all the Records Officer who had set it. Of the thirteen archers who showed up on Sunday morning only nine were eligible for inclusion in the handicap.
Ralf Mitchel: Scotsman, beekeeper, whiskey vlogger and author, took time away from being the darling of social media to ping a few arrows in the general direction of the targets at Onchan. He attempted to weasel out of shooting the WA 18 by virtue of shooting Barebow and ‘not being very good’. The Records Officer helpfully pointed out that it was the round of day, that all the other Barebows were shooting a WA18 and he could either buck his ideas up, or buzz off back to his bees. Ralf shot the round, coming dead last against an in-form Colin Moore who took the win and, a rather inconsistent, Stan Gorry who came second. After the handicap was applied Colin came third overall while Stan found himself bottom of the leaderboard. Ralf needs to post two more rounds to stablish his handicap and so did not feature on the results table.
Charlotte George and Barbara Harris made life difficult for themselves by electing to shoot the three-spot version of the WA 18. Charlotte was not happy with her performance, feeling that she was fighting against her bow rather than working with it. She still managed to post the highest scratch Recurve score of the day and her efforts put her into fourth place after handicapping. Barbara decided to give the morning over to experimenting with different methods of pre-draw. This naturally put a dent in her score, but she was more concerned with finding a way forward than she was with points chasing. She came second last after the handicap was applied.
Johnathon Gordon notched up a double win, beating Peter Howland in scratch terms in the Gents recurve and going on to claim overall victory in the handicap. Peter finished in fifth place after handicapping.
On the Compound side of things Rhys Moore divided his time between racking up another win in scratch terms, and coaching Chris Crompton in the techniques of the dark side. Chris continued to enjoy his new discipline, breaking 500 for the first time. Like Ralf he was ineligible for inclusion in the handicap as was Andrew Westmorland who put in a surprise appearance to take second place just 4 points ahead of Pete Mumford in third. Pete did enough to claim sixth place overall just ahead of Rhys in seventh. Joy Gough’s hard work began to pay off as her efforts put her into second place overall.
Erin Hainge elected to concentrate on the up coming Junior Indoor Nationals by shooting a Portsmouth round.
Results WA 18 Handicap- 1.J.Gordon 1478(60/501/15), 2.J.Gough 1437(60/524/6), 3.C.Moore 1435(60/424/5), 4.C.George 1434(60/513/11), 5.P.Howland 1433(60/422/5), 6.P.Mumford 1426(60/541/9), 7.R.Moore 1424(60/577/37), 8.B.Harris 1378(52/434/7), 9.S.Gorry 1328 (59/268/2)
Isle of Man Archery Club 