IFAA - Ekurhuleni Field Championships
Over the past weekend (24th/25th June) a few ‘Archers of Zoolake’ members went out to Archers Edge in Pretoria to participate in the IFAA Ekurhuleni Field Archery Championships. Why Pretoria is considered to be in Ekurhuleni? Your guess is as good as our team’s ability to spell ‘Ekhoorulehnii’.
Anyway, geography aside...
Day 1
Matthew Bossenger, Andre Reeders & I (Dean McHendry) headed out for Day 1 - the standard field round. It was an unexpectedly cold morning when we arrived at the range at 7:30am making it a chilly, unpleasant & challenging start, but the sun did make it’s way out, perhaps a little later than we were promised by Marjone Mulholland, but much appreciated anyway.
Unexpected cold weather, not ideal for us skinny folk!
Due to this competition being the first qualifying round of the season and with the world field champs being held in SA next year, there was a huge turn-out. Over a hundred archers! This is great for the sport, but because it was unexpected, the groups were double the usual size, making it a slow and long day of shooting. That said, it was superb to have a big group of recurve archers, including some of the best ‘recurvers’ in SA, Vivien De Klerk, Wian Roux, Johan Wilsenach, Peter Wiggett and even a long-bow archer; Cobus Venter. Some might even consider us AZL archers to be pretty good too!
Considering that half of our group were shooting their first ever field event, we saw some seriously good shooting and everyone finished on very respectable scores.
In the Adult Male Long Bow category after day 1:
1st Place - Cobus Venter with a 186
(Side note: Cobus just recently set a new IFAA Indoor National record for Adult Male Long Bow the previous weekend, 243 is a titanic score with a bow that looks like a beautifully varnished stick)
In the Adult Male Bowhunter Recurve category after day 1:
1st Place - Dean McHendry, managed a PB of 340 setting a new National Record for the field round and making it a second national colour qualifier for the season and qualifier towards the protea team selection for the world champs.
2nd Place - Matthew came in second place with a very solid score of 289. Possibly a PB.
In the Adult Male Freestyle Recurve category:
1st Place - Vivien De Klerk with a phenomenal score of 472 on his first ever field event making a National Colour Qualifier look easy.
2nd Place - Wian Roux with a solid 465 just missing the Mens National colour qualifier. However, he is 14 and should be shooting in junior which makes that score very impressive.
3rd Place - Johan Wilsenach with a very respectable score of 439.
4th Place - Peter Wiggett after a long argument with his clicker, both parties came to a very reasonable settlement of 409.
5th Place - Andre Reeders of AZL with a 367 with only 1 arrow down. Also due to a small disagreement with his clicker.
Day 2
A much warmer Day 2 saw a few more AZL faces on the range. Dirk Bruynse, Thomas Endrody & even Karsten Richartz joined Andre, Matt and I for the Hunter Round. Karsten, literally just pitched-up not realizing he had to actually register. Unfortunately, telling your coach “I will be there” does not count as official registration. However, he made up for his poor administration skills with some spectacular trick shots! This would be Karsten’s and Thomas’ first ever field events as well.
The AZL crew!
We also had a few other familiar faces join the Freestyle Recurve group, with Noel Robinson and Herman Fourie getting involved on day 2.
All of the AZL guys were lucky enough to be able to shoot together making it a seriously fun day out with the usual banter and laughter... and even a few good shots in between!
The GoPro is a fun new toy indeed!
Our Freestyle Recurve counterparts moved ahead on the course quickly, leaving them with much fewer distractions and leaving us with much fewer eyes to look for arrows in the grass & bushes. Luckily Dirk and I are very experienced in this department and most of the arrows were found, some even fully intact. Some trees and bushes may or may not have been harmed in the process, we have no reliable witnesses to confirm.
One of Karsten's trick shots! Bounced on a rock and landed softly on these branches intact and re-shootable!
Arrow finding crew!
Not much to see here, just an arrow that looks a lot like one of my arrows, but I never miss!
Another trick shot from Karsten! This time he managed to shoot a small pink foam block right off the top of the butt which slowed it down drastically so it landed nicely about 10 metres behind the butt!
Scores for Day 2:
Adult Male Long Bow:
1st Place - Cobus Venter - Improving to a 190 with way less arrow breakage!
Veteran Male Bowhunter Recurve :
1st Place - Thomas Endrody with a 206, not far off the current national record.
Adult Male Bowhunter Recurve:
1st Place - Dirk Bruynse with a frightening 358, a PB and a National colour qualifier in the bag!
2nd Place - Dean McHendry with a 345, adding another National Colour qualifier to the tally.
3rd Place - Matthew Bossenger with a 274, a little lower than day 1, showing obvious signs of dehydration and fatigue, in the form of ‘below the belt’ banter and ‘below the butt’ arrows.
Adult Male Freestyle Recurve:
1st Place - Vivien De Klerk, 480, with another National Colour qualifier.
2nd Place - Herman Fourie, 474 also bagging a National Colour Qualifier.
3rd Place - Noel Robinson with a great score of 430.
4th Place - Peter Wiggett improving nicely with a 426.
5th Place - Andre Reeders of AZL with a respectable 348. Still hasn’t found his arrow from day 1!
I am genuinely super proud of all of the above-mentioned archers, especially the AZL guys (mostly because I am supposed to like them) and even more so the newbies on the field course! You should all feel super chuffed with your performances this weekend.
Fortunately for me, the medal placings are decided based on the combined scores from both days, therefore, the final medal places were as follows: (Full event results can be found on the IFAA Field SA facebook group and hopefully they will also be posted on the SANAA website soon.)
Adult Male Long Bow:
Gold - Cobus Venter - 376
Adult Male Bowhunter Recurve:
Gold - Dean McHendry (AZL) - 685
Silver - Matthew Bossenger (AZL) - 563
My Gold medal is so bright I can barely keep my eyes open and Matt even needed his sunglasses!
Adult Male Freestyle Recurve:
Gold - Vivien De Klerk - 952
Silver - Peter Wiggett - 835
Bronze - Andre Reeders (AZL) - 715
Freestyle Recurve Men!
Full album of photos from the event can be found on the Sentient Archery Facebook page, give us a like/follow while you are there please!
Field Archery really is the most interesting and fun form of target archery around, I want to try encourage as many of you as possible to get yourselves out onto a field course with us! I guarantee you won’t regret it, just leave the ACE’s and X10’s at home! Although Archers Edge and even Magnum archery are in close proximity and might even do deliveries if you ask nicely (or desperately)!
Lastly, a HUGE thank you to all the organizers for running a superb event! Looking forward to the next one in July - North Gauteng Field Champs
Strong Shots!
Dean