AT this time of year, tournament practice and set up are traditional priorities for Blue Lake Archers.
With Covid restrictions beginning to tighten with each day, preparations are continuing unabated.
The club faced the same challenge for the last tournament and successfully managed to run the weekend of events and are working with similar precautions and optimism for the upcoming tournament in mid January.
Local competition last Sunday was billed as a Christmas recovery, the breezy conditions on the day pushing the planned outdoor event into a much less frustrating indoor event.
A pair of Australian 18 metre rounds were selected as the substitute rounds.
Fine tuning of equipment is a must before the tournament weekend and round one had lower scores for the established archers present as they finessed their tuning.
Round one was a cake walk for Peter Donhardt as his rivals fiddled with tuning.
A new Personal Best of 271 points off the bow by Donhardt translated to a benchmark busting 312 points in the adjusted scores, giving him a 23 point walk over of runner up Paul Freeman.
As the second round commenced it was obvious the equipment tuning was settled for Ben Kilsby and Freeman as their scores were on an upward trajectory.
Kilsby poured on the accuracy to bounce back to the front of the group, leading home Donhardt by two points with Freeman just four points further back at the end of the day.
Upcoming events include indoor archery at Blue Lake Gymnastics Club, Malseed Park Friday at 7.30pm followed by outdoor archery at Corriedale Park 12.30pm Sunday.
Australian Indoor 18 metre, Round 1, handicap scored, benchmark 300 points
Peter Donhardt 312 (off the bow 271 PB)
Paul Freeman 289 (276)
Ben Kilsby 288 (287)
Australian Indoor 18 metre, Round 2, handicap scored, benchmark 300 points
Ben Kilsby 297 (off the bow 296)
Peter Donhardt 295 (260)
Paul Freeman 291 (278)
