THE 18th staging of the Blue Lake Archers annual invitational tournament was held last week, despite the hot weather on Saturday.
The club hosted three separate events over Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The forecast of excessive temperatures for Saturday resulted in a modification of start time and rounds to ensure the archers avoided the worst of the heat.
Saturday’s outdoor event is the club’s official tournament and visiting archers took the opportunity to participate in indoor and clout archery to round out a full weekend with the local club.
Archers represented various regions and clubs, including Adelaide Archery Club (AAC), Barossa Archery Club (BAC), Eden Field Archers (EFA), Greater Hamilton Archers (GHA) and Great Southern Archers (GSA).
Archers in tournaments are divided into divisions based on equipment type, age and gender, a total of 13 divisions were represented.
TThere is no handicap scoring system used in the tournament – all scores are off-the-bow.
The indoor archery event was held at the club’s Malseed Park venue and was again offered as a Qualifying and Ranking Event (QRE) in which archers scores are counted toward state and national rankings and team selection at those levels.
The QRE indoor is a World Archery 18-metre, 60-arrow event on 40cm target faces.
Longbows made a comeback this year, having been a rarer sight in the recent BLA tournaments.
Four longbowers were on the line Friday night, along with two Barebow recurvers mixing with the compound bows.
Saturday the traditional four-distance outdoor events were altered to three distance rounds to compensate for the conditions.
Perth and Short Canberra rounds made their first ever appearance at the tournament weekend.
The Perth round is a 90-arrow event over 70, 60 and 50 metres, while the Short Canberra is also 90 arrows but at 50, 40 and 30 metres.
Regardless of the distance combination both rounds use the 122cm target face.
A 60cm face is used for the Crossbow round and required 45 scored crossbow bolts.
All of the four basic archery equipment groups were represented on the day – traditional wooden longbows, Olympic style recurve bows, compound bows and a crossbow.
The start timing of the event was earlier and combined with only 90 arrows to complete, allowed the lunch break to be after competition was finished.
Traditionally medals are presented at a presentation dinner on Saturday night, but this year the medals were awarded after the lunch that was held outside under the veranda at the clubrooms.
Medals were presented by BLA club president, Ian Harris, for placings in all divisions for the outdoor event.
The post event presentation allowed time for visiting archers to take in some local sightseeing or find a cool place for the afternoon before attending an evening meal that was held at a local venue Saturday night.
Returning to Corriedale Park Sunday morning the triple treat weekend wound up with a long-range Clout archery round.
The archers were spread over several distances dependant on their age, gender and archery equipment.
The 180-metre mark had four archers, 165 metres had one, 145 metres three and the 125 meter mark had one archer.
Windy weather conditions Sunday morning unfortunately did not dissipate, nor did it dampen the fun factor too much.
Local archery returns to normal this week with indoor Friday night at 7pm and Sunday afternoon at Corriedale Park commencing at 12.30 pm.
Friday – Indoor WA 18 (QRE), possible score 600 points.
Open Female Compound: Tamika Mullan (BLA) 543.
Open Male compound: Ben Kilsby (BLA) 579; Matthew Delaney (BAC) 495.
Open Male Long Bow: Simon Miles 195.
50+ Female Barebow Recurve: Fiona Allison (BLA) 295.
50+ Male compound: Michael McDonald (GSA) 549; Paul Freeman (BLA) 545.
60+ Female Longbow: Shirley Biggs (GSA) 190.
60+ Male Compound: Jeffrey Puckridge (BLA) 551.
60+ Male Longbow: Norman Biggs (GSA) 349; Shane Bergl (GSA) 285.
70+ Male Compound: Ian Harris (BLA) 529.
Saturday – Outdoor Short Canberra 50, 40 and 30 metres, possible score 900 points.
Open Male Longbow: Simon Miles 436.
60+ Female longbow: Carol Ashlee (AAC) 344; Shirley Biggs 214.
60+ Male Longbow: Norman Biggs (GSA) 580; Shane Bergl GSA).
70+ Male longbow: Jeff Nichol (AAC) 473.
70+ Male Barebow recurve: Rick Peterson (EFA) 393.
Crossbow short BLA Canberra 50, 40 and 30 metres possible score 270 points.
60+ Male Crossbow: Timmy Rose (BAC) 343.
Outdoor Perth round 70, 60 and 50 metres, possible score 900 points.
Open Female Compound: Tamika Mullan (BLA) 735.
Open Male compound: Ben Kilsby (BLA) 834.
50+ Male compound: Michael McDonald (GSA ) 817; Paul Freeman (BLA) 783.
50+ Male Recurve: Matt Radoslovich (BAC) 314.
60+ Male Compound: Jeffrey Puckridge (BLA) 811; Tim Roberts (GHA) 805.
70+ Male Compound: Ian Harris (BLA) 704.
Sunday – Clout round, possible score 360 points.
Open Female Compound (165m): Tamika Mullan (BLA) 279.
Open Male compound (180m): Ben Kilsby (BLA) 317.
Open Male longbow (145m): Simon Miles (GSA) 144.
50+ Male compound (180m): Paul Freeman (BLA) 307.
60+ Female Longbow (125m): Shirley Biggs (GSA) 75.
60+ Male Compound: Peter Donhardt (BLA) 131.
60+ Male Longbow (145m): Norman Biggs (GSA) 132.
70+ Male Compound (180m): Ian Harris (BLA) 236.
70+ Male Barebow Recurve (145m): Rick Peterson (EFA) 131.
