Excitement was high this weekend as one of the highlights of the Archery Outdoor Season – The Irish Open Target Championships and the Irish Open Team Championships took place on Saturday and Sunday respectively…
Archers from all over gathered in Harbour House Archery Club, Athy, Co. Kildare on Saturday to compete in the Open Target Championships which is a World Archery 1440 Round.
This popular competition takes place over 4 distances with 36 arrows being shot at – for Senior Men – 90m, 70m, 50m and 30m, for Senior Women, Master Men and Under 18 Men the distances are 70m, 60m, 50m and 30m and for Master Women and Under18 Women it’s 60m, 50m, 40m and 30m.
Representing CúChulainn at a wet and misty Irish Open Target Championships on Saturday were five members of the club. The club did extremely well with members winning medals in all categories they entered – and taking some Irish Records as well!
In Compound Senior Women, Emma Crosbie took Bronze and claimed her 1100 WA award.
In a hotly contested Compound Senior Men category, where the first four archers all scored +1300, with Éamonn Rogers taking the Silver medal.
The Recurve Senior Men was another hotly contested category. Kevin Flynn came in 6th place narrowly missing his first World Archery Award.
For the Senior Barebow Men category, David Ryan of CúChulainn took Silver with Wexford man Padraig Doyle taking the Gold for Slaney Archers and breaking four Irish Records (to be confirmed) at the same time.
In Barebow Boys Under 15, Conor Ryan took Gold – plus 5 Irish Records (to be confirmed) in his first ever Irish Open Championship.
Also in competition was Padraic Barry, who shot extremely well in his first ever competition, gaining a club Silver medal.
Sunday dawned misty, but archers were hopeful as they travelled back for the Team Championships. The mist lifted and the morning was sunny and it looked like the weather was set for the day.
The teams consist of the top three Male and the top three Female archers from each club in each discipline. These are chosen by their score in the qualifying round, which is a WA720 round. This involves 72 arrows shot at 50m for Compound archers and 72 arrows shot at 70m for Recurve.
Just as the teams lined up to start competing at the end of the qualifiers, the weather took a turn for the worst and the rain poured down. However, it takes more than a downpour to stop archers competing.
CúChulainn Archers team of Éamonn Rogers (CúChulainn Wexford), Fiachra Mac an Bhreithiún and Hugh Murphy (CúChulainn Louth) came second by just 3 points and took Silver. CúChulainn Archers also had two mixed teams, with Wexford’s Éamonn Rogers and Emma Crosbie taking Silver and Louth’s Fiachra Mac an Bhreithiún and Michelle Brohan taking Bronze.
All in all a great result for the club who came home, wet, tired wind and sunburnt!
CúChulainn Wexford run beginner courses – all enquiries to cuchulainnwexford@yahoo.com
