After getting my equipment back to my normal set up, using my other new limbs I felt as if no one could beat me this weekend at Lilleshall.

The junior national championships are the biggest event I enter each year, and is spread over 2 days. This year it was held on Saturday the 3rd of July and Sunday the 4th of July. We travelled down there on the Friday, stopping off at the field were I was going to compete the next day to set up our tent, and also have a practice shoot. We then went on to the hotel, where we met up and had a meal with members from Orrell Archers. We had a great laugh! After that I had a good, night’s rest (which was very nice) when we got back to the hotel.

Saturday morning I got up at 6:30 (which is really no good for me) feeling confident for this shoot. I shot really well for the first couple of dozen, being 1st out of 33 on the leader board for a couple of dozen. It was a close competition, with the top 3 places being within points of each other. As the day progressed, I shot one arrow wrong and got a very low score with it, knocking me into 2nd place, I was gutted! Thankfully I shot reasonably well for the rest of the day keeping me in second position. I was awarded 2nd place medal at the awards ceremony. I was really happy with the way I shot as I scored a personal best, and reset the Lancashire county record that I already hold.

After shooting well the previous day, I thought that Sundays shoot would have been a piece of cake, but after seeing the weather forecast when I woke up I thought different. There were severe winds which were supposedly going to get worse throughout the day. The sight marks I attained at Nethermoss weren’t of any use whatsoever and I scored very low for my first dozen arrows and was over 20 points behind the leader by the end of two dozen arrows. I knew I had to up my game and by 3rd dozen I had got back into the swing of things and was 2nd place on the leader board. Targets began to fall over in the strengthening wind and archers were finding it hard to shoot. At 4 dozen the judges decided that it was starting to get dangerous and announced a comfort break so that they could decide whether or not to abandon the shoot. After about 15 minutes it was decided that the shoot was shortened to a western round (there are different types of westerns, being at different distances for each age group, mine being 60 yards and 50 yards, 4 dozen at each distance). The targets were moved to the shorter distance and shooting commenced. I started to claw back some of my previously lost points, but not enough to increase my position on the leader board. I remained in 2nd place till the end of the tournament, winning the second place medal.

Although I went there to win this weekend (as did everybody else), I was happy with the way I shot and pleased that I finished within the top 3 positions on both days.