Auck. archers on top

Press, 4 January 1978, Page 6

Auck. archers on top

PA Auckland Auckland archers kept their dominance on the second day of the inter-dominion teams contests at the thirty-fifth national archerv championships at Manurewa, Auckland. The first three placing* in both the men’s and women’s A grade events are held by archerg from the Auckland area. In the men’s section, Mike West (North Shore) leads with 2372 points from the target rounds yesterday and Monday. Trailing West Is the highly promising young Auckland archer. Tony Lyons, from the Auckland club. Lyons, who is only aged 16, has 2334 points—2o more than the Manukau competitor, Mike Ford, in third place.

Ward’s wife, Joan, is -also very handy with a bow and leads the women’s A grade section after I two rounds. She has 2120 points.

The leader going into the afternoon shooting yesterday in the women’s section, Carolyn Lindsay, from the Auckland club, slipped slightly in the standings and allowed Mrs Ward to take the lead.

In third place last evening was Leonie Moody from the Mountain Green club in Auckland. She had shot 2047, 61 behind the second place holder. On teams standings, the sixman New Zealand team still

holds a slender lead over its Australian counterpart. New Zealand has 12,918 points while the Australians have 12,870. At the lunch break yesterday the local team had held a 100 point lead. But during the afternoon shooting the Australians narrowed the margin by more than half, to 48. One of the high point* of the day’s shooting was the performance of the Christchurch para pleglc archer, Neroli Fairhail. Miss Fairhall became the first paraplegic woman In the country to achieve a F.I.T.A. gold star. She is one of the four paraplegics competing In the event. The archers will shoot two clout rounds today as well as staging the flight championships at Ardmore Aerodrome. The flight event involve* the archers shooting to see who can gain the longest distance with specially made bow - * and arrows.

The record for the unlimited flight section is 824 mA clout round is another t»r. get event. But instead of shooting at a standing target the bullseye is laid out on the ground The_ target is about 3m in

size. The men shoot from 185 m while the women shoot from 128 m. The toumement end* on Frb dav with the final dav of th” field championships which will begin tomorrow.