THE Evesham stage of the Archery GB National Tour drew to a close with participants from all over the country competing for medals.
The fifth leg of the tour took place in challenging weather conditions at Evesham Archery Club.
Strong winds meant the qualifying events for the men’s and women’s recurve competitions were reduced from the usual 72 arrows down to 36 with archers still able to claim ranking points.
Evesham archer and tour competitor Luke Wilson said: “I’ve never experienced wind this atrocious shooting here before.
“When even the world number one is struggling, it really comes down to the camaraderie archery inspires to get us all through.”
Unfortunately, shooting came to a halt on day one after the qualifiers in the interests of the players’ safety with many national level archers pulling out due to the bad weather.
Eventually, Megan Havers topped the women’s event followed by Bryony Pitman and Penny Healey with Patrick Houston winning the men’s event ahead of British duo Connor Hall and James Woodgate.
The compound and barebow events took place the following day with the wind still wreaking havoc as world number one Ella Gibson led the women’s compound division while Domagoj Buden led the men’s event at the end of the qualifiers.
On the other side of the field, Ralph Barwise led the men’s barebow competition with Patricia Hotchkiss leading the women’s event.
In the men’s compound medal matches, Britain’s Luke Davis took gold while fellow Brit Ajay Scott took silver and Justin Twigg claimed bronze.
And in the women’s compound medal matches Gibson won gold while Layla Annison claimed silver and Hallie Boulton took bronze.
In the men’s barebow competition, Barwise won gold with Daniel Kilgallon taking silver and Mark Turner claiming bronze.
And in the women’s barebow competition, Hotchkiss won gold ahead of Anastasia Wilson and Nadine Parker who claimed silver and bronze respectively.
