Tuesday, 29 July 2014

Time to step it up a notch...


Hot off the back of the Welsh and & UK Championships, I had an email with a bit of fantastic news which could spell the biggest change in my Archery career since I left recurve behind and picked up a compound… I’ve made it into the European Pro Series!

I’ve wanted to go professional and join the Pro Series for a while, but I couldn’t make it to the qualifier for this years events as it was a 5 day shoot in Hungary that clashed with family plans and I couldn’t really afford it. I contacted the organizers though to register my interest and gave a brief history of my shooting and they awarded me a place in the reserves.

Well my number has come up! The next event is in Fort Van Lier in Belgium on the 23/24th of August and due to last minute dropouts, the reserves have moved up into the target list and I have been invited – so I will be making my Professional Archery debut next month in Belgium!

I’ve had to get my passport renewed and one of my friends is competing at this event and has room in his car to haul me along and offered me a ride. We are splitting the ferry/fuel costs to make it manageable and I will be camping at the fort to save money as it is over 300 Euros to stay at a hotel for the duration of the shoot. I enjoy camping anyway so that is no problem at all for me!
Everything is in order, my bow is well tuned and I have all the equipment I am going to need. I’ve only got one shoot between now and then - a FITA field shoot at Fort Purbrook in Portsmouth in 2 weeks time so I will use that as a final chance to make sure everything is where it is supposed to be. We will be arriving in Belgium a full day before the competition though so I will have the full day to make use of the official practice session and ensure everything is on the money before the real deal.

Well..  in the immortal words of Q from Star Trek  - “The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged. It’s now time to see if you can dance…”

 

 

The UK & Ireland Field Archery Championships 2014


The UK & Ireland Field Archery Championships were hosted by my home club, Pentref Bowmen this year at our course in Llwynypia overlooking the Rhondda Valleys.
I was involved with the work party in the weeks leading up to the competition, cutting back the severe overgrowth to lay on 2 x 28 target courses and it took a lot of work but we got the field ready in time and got all the targets out and into place.

There was an excellent turnout for this shoot and the competition was going to be tight. I was shooting the Hunter course on the first day, and despite a poor forecast the weather was pretty good to us. It was mostly clear and quite warm, with only the odd passing shower in the afternoon.  I shot well for the most part but dropped a few 17’s during the afternoon on the longer/steeper targets so finished up on 532 points, placing me in 4th place by 3 points.

Taking shelter in a shower! Yes its a handbag umbrella
but when you need it and you 'aint got it, you sing a different tune!
 
On day 2 we were on the Field course and the groups were sorted by score, so I was in the top group with the archers I was directly competing with. I didn’t have enough points to make 1st or 2nd but I was pushing for 3rd place and going into the last few targets I closed the gap and pulled one point ahead on the penultimate target.

Our last target however was right in front of the clubhouse – a 50 yard shot with everyone that had already finished watching adding to the pressure!  We got our arrows away and I lost the advantage, finishing on exactly the same score. It was down to X’s and my opponent had more than me on day 1 so he took the honour and I missed the podium by the narrowest of margins.
Even so I was still very pleased, I had 2 great days of field archery and put in 2 solid GBM scores close to my personal bests so I couldn’t ask for more and the medals went to those who earned them. I didn’t come away empty handed however, as I was part of the team competing for the Home Nations trophy and we won!

 
The winning Welsh team!
 

Last year we won the trophy in Scotland and it was the first Welsh win in 21 years, and we successfully defended it for 2014 so we kept the trophy and each team member received one of the limited edition gold WFAA UKIFAC 2014 medals. All told, not a bad weekend!

Friday, 4 July 2014

The WFAA Welsh & Open Championships


This weekend, Red Kite Archers hosted the WFAA Welsh & Open Championships at their course in Broad Oaks, Carmarthenshire. It was a 2 day shoot, with a Field and a Hunter round on their course which has recently been reclassified as a 4.5/5 on the difficulty scale – the hardest course the WFAA have run to date so we were in for a treat!

The weather was pretty good, a little cloudy but warm and very strangely – no wind! Anybody familiar with Red Kite will tell you how fierce the wind is on that course, it is usually blowing a gale on the top end of the course but there wasn’t a breath of wind all day. We did have one torrential shower that really came down hard but it lasted all of 10 minutes and it was sunny after that for the rest of the round.


The shooting was tight! We must have killed at least a dozen nocks/pins between us!
 
I shot really well and put in almost identical scores for both halves, finishing on 534/560 which is only 2 points off my personal best and put me ahead in 1st place. With day 1 behind us, it was time to relax and a few of us from the WFAA camped overnight at the course. Pitching took seconds with my trusty little popup tent and I spent the evening enjoying a few ales in the evening sun. Bliss!



 

We rose bright and early on day 2, packed away the camping gear and got everything ready for the Hunter round . I put in another solid round with consistent shooting, there were 1 or 2 poor targets in the first half but I settled down and made a good recovery in the second half only dropping 10 points and closed out the round on 533 points.

The results went in while we packed everything away and then we were called to the awards. The results were announced, and I had won! I am now the WFAA Welsh & Open AMFU Champion!



A good day for team Wales Archery!
 

I was absolutely thrilled with this result and I would probably rate these as the strongest rounds I have shot to date. My personal bests for Field and Hunter rounds are 538/536 respectively and I shot 534/533 this weekend. My pb’s were shot on a literally flat course with no slopes or angles in great weather, and these scores were shot on a very challenging course.

I have been training recently and working hard on improving my form, anchor and release to get them more consistent and it seems to be paying off. The big one - the UK & Ireland Field Archery Championships are in 2 weeks time at my home club, Pentref Bowmen and I am really looking forward to it now after this result Bring it on!