EVESHAM Archery Club ace Jacquie Holmes overcame the odds to win Archery GB’s flagship event of 2018.
Having competed at six qualifying events, Holmes had gained sufficient ranking points to qualify in seventh place out of the eight who were invited to the end of year National Tour Final.
Holmes then showed great accuracy to triumph on finals day at the home of British archery – Lilleshall National Sports Centre in Shropshire.
In the quarter-final, Holmes was pitted against the very highly-rated young GB squad archer Layla Annison.
Unfortunately for her, Annison had a couple of technical issues which allowed Holmes to take the win with a rather nervous 140 points out of a possible 150.
In the semi-final Holmes was up against Archery GB’s Lucy O’Sullivan from Jersey and the weather conditions took a turn for the worse with steady rain throughout the match.
O’Sullivan initially took a four-point lead after two ends of three arrows but Holmes fought back to force a one-arrow shoot-off at the end of the match, with the scores level at 139 apiece.
In the shoot-off, Holmes’ arrow was 2mm closer to the centre of the target than O’Sullivan’s, which gave the Vale archer a place in the gold medal match against favourite Sarah Prieels.
Because Holmes was the lower-ranked archer, she as asked to shoot first and fired a perfect 30 points with her first three arrows, before Prieels dropped a point and shot a 29.
The same scores were repeated in the second end of three which gave Holmes a two-point lead after two ends and in the third end both archers scored 29.
Prieels shot a perfect 30 in the fourth end to Holmes’ 29 which meant the Evesham archer led by one point heading into the fifth and final end.
Both archers shot ten, nine and nine for scores of 28 and it was an elated Holmes who clinched the gold medal.
THERE has also been success for Evesham Archery Club’s juniors Alex Shehata-Morgan and Freija Guntripp.
The duo travelled to Redhill Archers in Wythall for the West Midlands Archery Society and County of Worcester Archery Association Junior Championships.
Both competed in the same round – a Bristol 4 – which consists of 72 arrows at 40 yards, 48 at 30 and 24 at 20.
Despite facing rainy conditions and strong breezes, Shehata-Morgan won the West Midlands under 12s gold medal and Guntripp the under 14s bronze.
In the county competition, there was another gold for Shehata-Morgan and a silver medal for Guntripp.
Shehata-Morgan also returned with the trophy for being crowned County of Worcester Archery Association junior champion – awarded for the highest score made by a county archer across all rounds and all age groups.
