FITA Welsh & Open Field Championships 2012

The last weekend of September is always the FITA Welsh & Open Field Championships and it was hosted by my club, Pentref Bowmen as usual this year. Being a 2 day FITA event, the shoot was in the usual format of a 24 target unmarked course on the Saturday, followed by the marked distance round on the Sunday.

Everything was tuned nicely on my bow and my sightmarks were good, so I rocked up nice and eager to day 1! I have been shooting IFAA rounds pretty much exclusively for a while, and don’t have a really accurate ranging ‘cheats’ system so the unmarked was going to be a nice challenge J The weather was fairly decent with little wind and mostly cloudy all day, and the course was easy enough to walk with only a few muddy/difficult areas.  I shot quite well with only a few of the longer targets giving me any trouble on the ranging, finishing up on 364, 20 points into Bowman and a 16 point increase on my unmarked PB!

Unfortunately this wasn’t to be repeated a second day! On the way to the club for day 2, the heavens opened – and stayed open all day. It rained relentlessly all day for the full duration of the shoot and through the night, the ground was sodden and very difficult to navigate with mud up over your ankles a common thing. I have to say a big thanks to Tracey Anderson of the GB squad for her loan of a Ziploc bag to keep my sight/scope clear in between targets!  Her shooting was on fire and she had an amazing weekend with some incredible targets, especially 3X’ing  the longest distance in heavy rain. In the end, totally soaked through my so called ‘waterproofs’ I finished on 352 which is 12 points below my PB, but given the conditions and that my PB was shot on a much flatter course in good weather i’ll take that score and be very happy with it J

So all told, I finished with 2 x Bowman level scores and ended on a combined total of 716 which put me in 8^th place overall, 6^th welsh. I had hoped to make the top 5 Welsh and only missed out on it by a handful of points , so it’s within my grasp and there’s always next year!