Louth archers claim national medal haul

Peter Shaw and Stuart Rodgers headed to the Lilleshall National Sports and Conference Centre, in Shropshire, to compete in The Worshipful Company of Fletchers British Blind Sport Indoor Archery National Championships.

Saturday’s Championship competition consisted of two rounds, shot at a 60cm target face, starting with a World Archery 25-metre, shooting five-dozen arrows, followed by another 60 arrows at 18m.

Shaw, a veteran archer from North Cotes, made his debut in a vision impaired (VI) national championship and won gold in the VI Open Compound class.

And there was a bronze medal for Rodgers, a regular competitor at the VI Championships, in the VI B1 (totally blind) class.

The results secured the Sutton-on-Sea archer a place with the British VI team to compete the European Para-Archery Championships.

The event is due to be held in the Czech Republic in August, provided other countries field teams.

Sunday saw changes to the round being shot, the target size and the competition.

The round format was a Worcester – 60 arrows (12 ends of 5) from 20 yards at a black and white 40cm target face.

Archers faced two targets, one above the other, as the first archer shot six ends at the upper target, while a second competitor shot at the lower.

After a short break the athletes changed places to complete the round.

For this round the sighted spotters were also given the opportunity to shoot in a handicap-based challenge match.

Stuart won silver in the Blackout Challenge and led the VIs to victory in the team handicap-based match which pitted VIs against Sighted as Rodgers beat his coach and mentor Rick Smith.

Future competitions are planned for the pair at county and national levels, with Rodgers also entering an international invitation shoot in Andorra, where he will face the current world champion from the United States.