Archers impress despite weather conditions

The Archery Association of Namibia (AAN) successfully hosted their Nationals at the shooting range of the SKW in Windhoek last weekend.
Participants went head-to-head in eight divisions, as strong and cold winds blew throughout the tournament.
“I can’t remember that we had such strong winds at the nationals ever” one of the participants remarked.Despite the harsh weather conditions, the archers managed to shoot some world class results.
The Compound men category proved to be one of the fiercest contested divisions of the entire event. Ruan van Staden, who just underlined his class at the Stage 3 World Cup in Turkey a fortnight ago, emerged victorious after a hard fought final against Klonkie de Villiers.

Throughout the elimination rounds both archers kept their cool against some stiff competition. De Villiers eventually faced Dirk Bockmühl, who had scored the third highest score during qualification, in the semi-final. And although Bockmühl put up a great fight, it wasn’t enough to beat de Villiers who moved to the gold medal match.
Bockmühl later went on to claim the third place against Rikus Grobler, who lost his semi-final against the later champion van Staden.
Meanwhile Ilana Malan emerged victorious in the Compound women division. She had already dominated the qualification round, scoring 635 points, 13 more than second-placed Elisabeth Taljaard. The leading pair then went through the elimination rounds in spectacular fashion, facing each other in the final were Malan won.Liezel Schoeman then settled for third place.
In other action, Hendrik van Eeden took top honours in the Compound cadet men’s category, however, Mynhardt Beukes gained the highest score (659). Van Eeden had to settle for 636 points, going into the elimination in fourth place. The pair then met each other in semi-final. This time van Eeden proved to be in better shape as he beat his rival to allow him to progress into the final. wereth van Eeden won.
In the compound master men division there was no stopping Johann Viljoen from South Africa as he cruised through the finals and won against Harvey Park.The third place went to Rüder Woortman with Moritz Hoff in fourth.
The future also looks bright for the AAN as the juniors stepped up to the plate despite the harsh conditions with the U13 compound boys and girls as well as U15 participated in the chmpionships.