As there is no archery in the Island Games in Bermuda this year, the Bowmen of Guernsey held a week long archery tournament which was open to all the archers from the member Islands. This took place last week in Guernsey with a total of ten Islands sending competitors. The Isle of Man team which was made up of Sarah Rigby, Peter Mumford, Dave Moore, Billy Lightfoot – all compound archers, and Rhys Moore who shot recurve. They took part in the individual and team competitions held on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday over the week.
Sarah Rigby proved that she was the one to beat in the Ladies Compound competitions. In the individual Fita round, Sarah and Lucy O’Sullivan of Jersey (a former GB National Series champion) had a real battle with Sarah taking the first distance and Lucy pulling back on the 60m distance and taking the lead at half way. However, Sarah then shot an excellent 50m and not only caught up with Lucy but finished ahead of her by 12 points going into the final distance. When the nock on one of Sarah’s arrows failed during the shot and left her scoring a 6 in the 30m, and with Lucy taking the odd point here and there, no-one was sure of the result until it was announced. Sarah triumphed with an overall win by 4 points after the 144 arrows, with Ann Frankum of the Isle of Wight in third place. This win placed Sarah as the number 1 seed going into the Head to Head match round, with Lucy at number 2 and the seeding worked out exactly right as the two girls found themselves in the Gold/Silver medal match. Uncharacteristically Sarah had three misses in her first round match due to the gusty wind but she still managed to beat her opponent. Sarah, who has had quite a few high-level H2H matches in her archery career, then showed her talent once again by progressing through to the final 15 arrow match and triumphed over Lucy with a score of 134 over 130. Once again Ann Frankum of the Isle of Wight took the bronze medal. Two well deserved gold medals to add to Sarah’s list of successes at this level.
In the compound gents Fita event it was Dave Moore’s turn to excel. This was his first archery competition at Island Games level (previously being in the shooting team where he was a multi-medal winner, and also winning a silver medal in shooting at the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia). Dave started well and was in second place on the leaderboard at the end of the first half day. The weather changed at lunchtime with a strong gusty wind getting up and although he shot steadily and consistently he slipped into third place, but then maintained this position right through to the end to take the bronze medal. Both Gold and silver went to Guernsey. This was a great achievement by Dave having only changed his sport last year. He also had a really good shoot in the H2H individual competition winning all his rounds and going into the shoot off for the bronze medal which he only lost by 3 points against his opponent, Paul Breban of Guernsey. Guernsey showed their strength by taking all three podium places.
Sarah and Dave were obviously on form and carried their successes into the team competitions. In the compound Fita Team along with newcomer Billy Lightfoot there was a very close competition against Guernsey. The cumulative scores of the top three archers (two men and one woman) are used for this competition and the total scores were only differing by a four points advantage to the Isle of Man over Guernsey after the first two distances, but then the lead gradually increased and the Manx team won with a total score of 3695 to Guernsey’s 3675. The bronze medal went to Ynys Mon with a combined team score of 2487.
In the compound Team H2H Match, the team was Sarah and Dave and this time they were joined by Peter Mumford. In this match the three archers have to shoot four ends of arrows. All the archers have to shoot two arrows (one archer immediately following the other) within a time limit of only 2 minutes for each end and there are strict rules concerning foot faults and not loading the arrow too soon. The Isle of Man team really showed their class during this event, with an awesome display of relaxation combined with concentration and high level scoring. The final score was Isle of Man 219, Guernsey 209 giving the Manx team the gold medal, Guernsey the silver and the Isle of Wight took the bronze.
The only Manx competitor in the Recurve division was young archer Rhys Moore who found both the weather conditions and the competition quite testing in his first competition at this level. However, considering his inexperience Rhys shot well and definitely learned a lot from this competition. He achieved his personal goal when he managed to defeat his opponent in the first round of the H2H competition, beating him 6 – 0 in the sets part of the recurve event, but unfortunately he was knocked out in the next round. He will now continue his training with a view to qualifiying for selection for the gents recurve team to compete in the Island Games in Jersey in 2015.
On Thursday, Peter Mumford and Billy Lightfoot took part in the York event (the other competitors having returned home that day). This is a competition shooting 6 dozen arrows at 100 yds, then 4 dozen at 80 yds and finally 2 dozen at 60 yds. Peter and Billy were both on the leaderboard throughout the 100 yard distance and swapping places at the end of each dozen. Peter then settled into his shooting and pulled up to take a steady second place all the way through to the end. Unfortunately Billy had a mishap during the 80 yds distance and slipped down to 5th place. Sadly he could not make back the points and finished just 8 points off the bronze medal position. Peter won the Silver Medal with a score of 1070, behind Keiran Kelly of Guernsey who scored 1122 with Jim Frankum of the Isle of Wight in third place with a score of 1045.
Overall, although there were some Islands who did not compete in this event, the Isle of Man Team really showed how strong they are, especially in the compound division and particularly considering that two of the team were new to this level of competition. The Bowmen of Guernsey put on a very well organised competition for all the archers and although the weather was mixed all the archers enjoyed the event. Preparation will start now towards the Island Games in Jersey in 2015. Thanks to the Greeba Residents Association the new shooting field at Greeba is already proving beneficial being more sheltered than Ronaldsway and giving the archers a chance to practice regularly without too much interruption by the weather.
The Isle of Man Archery Club would like to place on record their appreciation of the support given by IOM Sport and the NatWest Development Fund towards the travel expenses incurred in attending this International competition. All in all the Manx archers returned home with a total of 4 gold medals, 1 silver and 1 bronze.
