Sarah Rigby won the Gold Medal, along with a Bronze, at the Commonwealth Regional Archery Championships held in Belfast this weekend.  She was accompanied by Dave Moore back in Commonwealth mode, only in a different sport from his previous Commonwealth tournaments. The Northern Ireland Archery Society played host to this year’s event, an annual tournament approved by the Commonwealth Games panel as a medium to lobby them to include archery in future games.

With many of the home nations in attendance including very strong teams from England & Scotland which included many of the current Great Britain archery squad, it was always going to be a tough competition of the highest calibre.

The event commenced on Saturday, with a WA1440 round.  The results being decided on the total scores from 144 arrows shot over the course of the whole day at four distances.  Dave Moore had an incredible day – he started off by adding 13 points to his personal best for the 90metre distance, by lunchtime he was lying in 6th position.  The afternoon laid truth to the old adage “four seasons in one day” as after the blistering sunshine, came not only rain, but hailstones, thunder and lightning (during which shooting had to be stopped whilst it passed) and back to sunshine to end the day with an equalled personal best for Dave with a total score of 1272.  Sarah held well, and spent most of the day trading points with England’s Nichola Simpson and Pauline Burfitt for the lead with 1 point each between first and third place.  Unfortunately a fletching detached itself mid-flight from one of Sarah`s arrows at the 50metre distance, costing her 10 points and ultimately the silver medal so had to settle for Bronze this time.

With a score to settle on day 2 Sarah went in to 50metre ranking round determined to make up for Saturday’s disappointment. 

After a blistering first dozen of 119/120 the wind once again put in an appearance to any hopes of continuing on such an amazing pace.  After the 72 arrow round Sarah was seeded in second place behind England’s Pauline Burfitt, with Dave Moore qualifying in the gents division in 19th place for the Head 2 Head eliminations.   Dave won his first match against 15th seeded Martin Krusche from Scotland 136 to Martin’s 132, then headed into the 1/8 match against England’s Neil Bridgewater – he held his own brilliantly against the No 2 seed & GBR international, only being pipped by 3 points. Neil went on to win the event but had to work hard to get past Dave.

Up next were the quarter finals with Sarah Rigby qualifying so well giving her byes straight through to this round.  Her first win was over Scotland’s Elayne McLean 134-130, lining her up for a tough semi-final against England’s and GBR International Christie-Lee Ravenscroft, a brilliant battle ensued, with the lead trading places over the course of the whole match, culminating in Sarah finding a handful of 10’s on the last end to take the match 139-138 to take her into the Gold Medal final against another GBR International Pauline Burfitt.

With Scotland’s ladies being all knocked out at this point Sarah found herself up against England with a whole team of Scots supporting her for this match.  Dave Moore sent arrow by arrow updates back to the club at home allowing them to follow the match live via Facebook. 

After an appeal by all the women’s finalists to the judges to get the match underway after a delay had been announced, which would have risked Sarah having to forfeit her Gold Medal to catch the flight back home, Sarah took control of the match from the off, taking a 5 point lead after the first end of 3 arrows, a lead that was only to increase as the match progresses, Pauline took back one point on the 3rd end but was pressured into a miss after Sarah opened the door a little with a loose arrow scoring only 7 points as a gust of wind blew her off aim.  The final end saw Sarah finish the match with a further increase on her lead winning the Gold medal by a clear 14 points – a veritable landslide in archery terms.  Sarah commented “After such a disappointing end to Saturday, it was a great feeling to win on Sunday. To know that the best in the country have to bring their “A” game to try to beat you is something I will never get used to.”