The IoM Archery Club held their annual Outdoor Championships at Greeba on Sunday. The competition took place over a WA1440 round - that is 36 arrows shot at each of four distances – 90, 70, 50 and 30m for the men and 70, 60, 50 and 30m for the women. The event was divided by bow type and gender. The sun shone for most of the day but the archers had to contend with heavily gusting winds which caused problems for all concerned.

The Gents Compound division provided the largest field of the day with four archers battling to lift the trophy, Dave Moore (defending Champion), Pete Mumford, Colin Moore and, shooting in the Championships for the first time since switching to Compound part way through the season, Rhys Moore. After the first distance Rhys had a 6 point lead over Dave, with Pete Mumford surprisingly down in fourth. It soon became clear that the battle for first place was between Dave and Rhys, with Colin and Pete fighting it out for the last place on the podium. By the end of the second distance Dave Moore had over turned the deficit and had a 12 point lead. Pete Mumford was still in fourth but was now only one point behind Colin. Colin then had a nightmare of a 50m round while Pete came back strongly to go on to take third place. Dave Moore also had a comparatively poor 50m round but Rhys shooting consistently, halved the deficit going into the final distance. At the end of the first dozen arrows at 30m Dave and Rhys were all square and the Championship was going down to the wire. At the end of the second dozen Rhys had retaken the lead by just one point. Dave’s last dozen arrows were of high quality but Rhys was just that bit better and took the win by two points to take the trophy at the first attempt.

Joy Gough was unfortunately the only competitor in the Ladies Compound division. Without the spur of direct competition Joy’s score was some way below her best.

The Gents Recurve Championship provided the most interesting line up of the day with Danny Cowin, Thomas Bott and Junior archer Josh Trafford going up against each other. Last year’s Champion Thomas Bott turned up to shoot not realizing that it was the Championships. Bott was out of practice not having shot for over two weeks. Josh Trafford, who accidently missed the Junior Championships of the week before, decided to try his luck with the adults. Trafford managed to reach the 90m distance during Tuesday night’s practice session. He could not get his sight to go low enough to be of use and so was more or less guessing where he was aiming. He had another go on Thursday’s Club night and did well enough to convince most people that he was in with a shot at the title. Danny Cowin, fresh from the Island Games in Jersey, was looking to lift the title for the first time.

From the off it was clear that Bott’s lack of practice would cost him dearly. By the end of the first distance Thomas was 66 points off the pace and the deficit got larger and larger as the day went on. The wind conditions gave all the archers trouble but was particularly troublesome for Josh Trafford. Without a proper sight mark at 90m Josh suffered eight misses and found himself 42 points behind Danny who also had a couple of misses. From 70m onwards Trafford was able to use his sight and had clearly not given up hope of victory. Josh managed to take two points out of Danny’s lead by the end of the 70m, and then put in the best 50m round of his career to go into the final distance just 7 points off the lead. At the end of the first dozen Trafford had cut the deficit to just 2 points. The next dozen saw Trafford leapfrog Danny to take a 6 point lead going into the final dozen. Josh’s final dozen arrows were terrific while Danny’s became suddenly wayward and Trafford took the Senior Recurve Trophy at the first attempt.

The Ladies Recurve division saw mother and daughter Barbara and Charlotte Harris face off against each other. Charlotte, winner of the Junior Recurve Trophy last week, was going for the double. Barbara who has had the worst Outdoor season since she started shooting found her form coming and going as the day progressed and she failed to even break the 1000. Charlotte coped well with the difficult conditions and led from start to finish. Her final score was a personal best for the round and a Junior Master Bowman equivalent.

Results Senior Champs – Gents Compound: 1. R Moore 143/1262/40/14, 2. D Moore 144/1260/41/17, 3. P Mumford 143/1222/36/10, 4. C Moore 143/1165/27/7. Ladies Compound: J Gough 140/1188/28/9. Gents Recurve: 1. J Trafford 136/1009/15/1pb, 2. D Cowin 141/991/8/4, 3. T Bott 131/837/8/2. Ladies Recurve: 1. C Harris 144/1047/17/7pb, 2. B Harris 142/994/14/3.

Also shooting Short Metric III Junior Gents Recurve – 1. J Reaney 68/453/4/1, 2. J Hill 67/387/2/0.

Congratulations to all the new Champions.