Rhodes University Archery Club hosted the annual Eastern Province archery championships last weekend, with one of its own archers winning gold in Sunday's elimination round.
Rhodes University Archery Club hosted the annual Eastern Province archery championships last weekend, with one of its own archers winning gold in Sunday's elimination round.
The competition was tough, with archers from all over the country competing in this year’s championships. The event was used by many archers as practice for the South African National Championships. Rhodes will also play host to this year's nationals, from 3 to 6 April.
For archers, Nationals is a prestigious event where they can shoot qualifying scores for the Archery World Cup and similar international events. The weekend's blistering heat was a challenge in itself, but with sunny skies and very little wind, some archers managed to shoot their best scores.
Saturday's event saw archers compete in an International Archery Federation round, where participants shot four distances – six rounds in the first two distances and 12 in the last two. The rounds comprised six arrows each, except for the last two distances, in which only three arrows were shot per round.
The distances were 90m, 70m, 50m and 30m for the men, compound and recurve. Women’s compound distances were 70m, 60m, 50m and 30m. The standard bow archers shot two distances, 50m and 30m, but shot each twice to make up four.
On Sunday archers competed in a 720 round, shot on a target distance of 50 metres. They shot 72 arrows, with an elimination after the shoot. The elimination turned out quite eventful, with Rhodes University archer, Lance Ho, taking the gold in a surprising turn of events.
This is the first time in years that Rhodes has won the gold in the Men’s Compound Unlimited round. Silver went to Jacques Venter and bronze went to Heinrich Funke, both from the Free State. With the Junior Compound Men, Simon Naude took first place, Eddie Hoskin second and Gerrit Bosman third. All are from Rhodes Archery.
Masters Mens Recurve saw honorary Rhodes Archery member, Johan Calitz, taking the gold. Linda Le Roux from Londt Park (PE) took gold in the standard bow ladies round and Nicole Messias took silver with Joy Lancaster (PE) taking the bronze.
This year's EP Champs held a special South African National Archery Association Recurve Limited round, in which archers who did not feel confident enough for a full recurve round had the opportunity to shoot a round at closer distances, 50m and 30m. In this division Greg Viljoen (Rhodes) took gold, with Johan Calitz (Londt Park) taking silver.
In the Cadet Standard Bow, Ruanne Stumke (Londt Park) took gold and David Jackson took the silver. Simon Naude and Lance Ho also shot their first out of four required qualifying scores for the University Games to be held in China in August. For more information about the scores and events, visit the Rhodes archery website, http://archery.sport.ru.ac.za/ or visit the Bushman's Bow Shop in High Street.
