THREE Namibian archers have been selected to represent the country at the 2012 World Field Archery Championships in Argentina at the end of October and beginning of November.
Following a rigorous selection process, Beanta Viviers, Rene Chamberlain and Ruan van Staden were selected based on their consistent performances throughout the year.All three achieved the strict minimum scores as set by the Archery Association of Namibia at least five times during the past 12 months.Viviers competes in the Adult Female Freestyle Unlimited class, Chamberlain in the Adult Male Bowhunter Unlimited class, and Van Staden in the Junior Male Freestyle Unlimited class. ‘The Archery Association of Namibia will motivate that these three archers be awarded National colours by the Namibia National Sports Commission,’ said the president of AAN, Frank Bockmuhl. Meanwhile, the last competition on the Namibian archery calendar, the 2012 Namibian National Field Archery Championships was held at the Sparta Field Archery Range a short distance outside Walvis Bay in the Namib Desert on Saturday and Sunday. Members of Sparta Archery Club did a tremendous job in preparing a state-of-the-art field archery course on the grounds of a partially abandoned crusher site.Very strong gusty winds and dust made shooting difficult at times on Saturday, with several archers recording a numerous misses. But, given that field archery is an outdoor sport, archers have to be able to cope with these conditions.At times, participants had to fight to keep their arrows on the arrow rests while aiming. Aiming with aching eyes open in a sandstorm did not help the archers to achieve their best results either.However, near perfect weather was experienced on Sunday, which contributed to the successful ending to the competition.Archers from as far as Lüderitz in the Karas Region, and Tsumeb in the Oshikoto Region joined Sparta, SKW and Windhoek Field Archery Club members in competition. As is normal in Field Archery, several bow styles and classes in different age groups were present. Competitors had the well-known compound bow, the recurve bow or even the traditional longbow, which provided quite a sight for spectators.- Namibiasport
