South club completes stage 1 of online World Archery series

SOUTH Arrows Archery Club (SAAC) is taking on the 2021 Indoor Archery World Series Tournament, and successfully completed stage one over the weekend.

This year, the series is being held virtually owing to the covid19 pandemic.

Its website explained, “Archers worldwide will be able to participate in an open online competition over one designated weekend every month from November 2020 to February 2021.”

Stage two will be held from December 19-20, stage three from January 16-17, stage four from February 13-14 and the final stage – stage five – from February 27-28.

SAAC head coach Sherwin Francis told Newsday 19 of his club’s members competed in stage one.

“Under strict covid19 restrictions, the club got approval to host the event at the Pleasantville Indoor Sports Arena.

“Of 780 in the Men’s Recurve category, TT’s Daniel Catariz Ragbir of Points Archery Club (PAC) ranked 174th in the world and topped the local men’s category with 555. Following closely in second and third locally were SAAC’s Cadets Darnell Garcia and Yusuf Ali with 536 points.

“In the Women’s Recurve category there were 435 athletes. TT’s top female archer Shemeriah Ali made it into the top 100 with a rank of 93: she scored 543, which is the second-highest score among all the local recurves.”

"And in the Men’s compound, TT’s Veshash Singh ranked 129th in the world: he finished first locally with a score of 573, while Joanne Yates-Boopsingh topped the local female archers with 535.”

He said this competition also featured SAAC’s first competitive Barebow archer, who made 299.