A FORECAST of wild, stormy weather over the weekend had Blue Lake Archers believing only the Friday night indoor would be likely to run.
However, as luck would have it they dodged the worst of the weather and a small contingent from the club managed to complete a full outdoor round Sunday afternoon.
The indoor round at St Martins College Hall was a World Archery 25 metre, with four archers competing.
It was obvious from the outset Phil Tremelling was the man to beat, his skill with his recurve bow matching or exceeding the scores from his opposition’s compound bows.
The event was quickly transformed into a guessing game, not of who would win, but how far in front Tremelling would be at the end.
Paul Freeman was having a reasonable night and looked the most likely to be the closest challenger when the handicap adjustments were added in.
Graham Lock kept Tremelling from claiming the best off-the-bow score, but had to work hard for it, Lock finishing only 11 points in front of Tremelling after 60 arrows.
As the final scores were tallied and adjustments were added, Tremelling had broken though the 600-point benchmark and his winning margin was 13 points over Freeman.
Sunday afternoon the three optimistic archers who attended the Corriedale Park range were surprised to discover the treacherously gusty wind was in fact a tail wind, the least likely direction to cause major aiming and arrow release problems.
The trio tested the conditions with the standard six arrow warm up and quickly decided it was safe to continue with a 50-metre Melbourne round.
Freeman and Lock joined Len Bayley to successfully launch and score 90 arrows each, without one arrow missing the scoring zones on the 122cm target face.
The target face used on the day had already been used in other competition rounds and was looking a little tatty around the centre area, but the group thought it would not receive too much additional damage in the rough conditions.
They were to prove themselves wrong.
Freeman bagged the first all-gold end for the day after 30 arrows.
Lock eventually snared two all-golds, but again found he was only just clinging onto the best off-the-bow score as Freeman refined his aim as the day wore on.
The final score line showed Freeman had come tantalisingly close to claiming the day’s best off-the-bow score, he was a solitary point behind Lock.
Bayley proved the better of Freeman’s two opponents once the handicap margins were added but his score was still 36 points shy of Freemans effort.
Results
WA 25 metre Indoor, handicap scored, benchmark 600 points: Phil Tremelling 611 (off-the-bow 537); Paul Freeman 598 (530); Graham Lock 582 (548); Garry Jacques 558 (492).
Melbourne outdoor round, handicap scored, benchmark 900 points: Paul Freeman 885 (off-the-bow 801); Len Bayley 849 (704); Graham Lock 845 (802).
