Young archers bring back medals

Hanne’ Snyman, a learner at the Windhoek Afrikaans Privaatskool won two gold medals at the recent SA National Target Archery Championships that were held in Grahamstown, South Africa. Snyman competed in the Girls U13 Compound category.Ruan van Staden, also of WAP won silver in both competitions and was ranked second while another WAP learner, Joubert Snyman, took the bronze medal and third ranking in both competitions.For many of the young Namibian archers, the SA National Championships were their first exposure to high level competition. Several other Namibians who made it into the Top Ten are Francois Grobler and Warren Smit of Windhoek Gymnasium, and Henre’ van Eeden of Tsumeb Gymnasium.The young Namibians competed in the FITA Round and in the 720 Ranking Round. A Four senior archers also attended the championships. Amongst the female shooters, B. Viviers and B. van der Merwe managed second and sixth places respectively while F. Marais and R. Woortman came 4th and 5th in the men’s division.In the Mixed Team event Miss B Viviers and Mr F Marais took the gold medal.The Archery Association of Namibia (AAN) is a regular guest of the South African National Archery Association (SANAA) at the annual SA Nationals. Ten Namibian archers (four adults and six children) were part of the tour group under the guidance of Rudi Woortman (team manager) and Marja Woortman, the national coach. As part of the development programme of the AAN, the open SA National Championships are  used to expose young and new archers to a higher level and larger competition fields.The official competition started on 11 April with registration and practice, and ended on 14 April in the evening with an awards dinner. Three different events were shot, namely the initial FITA Round (max score 1440 points possible), the 720 Ranking Rounds, and finally the individual eliminations, which resulted in the actual SA (Open) Championship.The 2012 Namibia National Target Archery Championships will be held on 15, 16 and 17 June at the SKW archery range in Windhoek.