Young archers take a bow at country club
Pupils from local schools show off competitive skills
From the enthusiasm shown by the participants in last Saturday’s schools archery competition, held at the Port Alfred Country Club, it seems that archery is gaining popularity among schools in the Eastern Cape.
NASP (National Archery in the Schools Programme) is an international programme to advance the sport of archery and encourage pupils to participate in the sport. Many schools in SA are already part of the programme and Eastern Cape schools are currently preparing for the national championships that will take place in November this year where pupils will be vying for selection to the Eastern Cape provincial team.
On Saturday the Buffalo Archery Club from East London, which includes schools such as Hudson Park, Clarendon Girls High School,
Selborne College and Beaconhurst High competed against local schools El Shaddai Christian Academy and Port Alfred High School in the monthly competition.
Parents of children participating at the sports club on Saturday, sisters Bev Kent-Brown and Tracy Pook, spoke about the competition.
“It’s gaining in popularity,” explained Pook.
“The fact is that archery doesn’t depend on athletic ability, strength, size or gender so everyone can participate. All the NASP bows are the same, just the tension is varied depending on the strength of the archer.” The bows themselves are potentially lethal weapons so safety is one of the overriding considerations during the competition and non-competitors are kept well away and behind the archers at all times.
Archers fire at either standard bullseye targets or at models of animals (called 3D archery) and scores out of a possible 300 points are awarded for accuracy and “kill shots” on the 3D models.
The top primary girl in the 3D section on Saturday was Hannah Ford with a score of 238. Top primary boy was Casper Bekker. In the bullseye competition, the top primary girl was also Hannah Ford with a score of 264 and the top boy was Hein-Carlo Smith with a score of 271. Top junior high scores for 3D were, for the girls Celeste Crouse (287) and for the boys Jason Botha (282). As for the junior high Bullseye competition, Janeke Grossman won the girls competition with a score of 279 and Jason Botha scored highest for the boys with a score of 290.
On the day, the top girl archer was Celeste Crouse with a combined score of 563 (out of 600) and the top boy archer was Jason Botha with a combined score of 572.