Independence Shoot in Swakopmund

The Swakopmund Archery Club will be the host of the Independence Shoot on 23 and 24 March in Swakopmund.

The popular annual Valentine’s shoot hosted by the Tsumeb Archery Club was won by Louw Nel who underlined his claim as Namibia’s number one compound archer. Nel showed he was deter-mined to keep the top position for the foreseeable future as he secured a total score of 695/720 on the 50-metre target. Jacques van der Merwe and Riaan Vermaak were his closest challengers, taking second and third spots with respectable scores of 668 and 653. The season is off to a good start for Nel, who has been steadily working towards his first 700 score, which appears within his range at the next competition.
Ilana Malan, Namibia’s number one women’s compound archer scored an even match with arc-her Babette Taljaard in the 720 round, both ending with a score of 674. But in the eliminations, Malan proved to be the better archer as the much younger Taljaard had to settle for a silver medal.
Namibia’s three young and upcoming archers Quinn Reddig, Adriaan Grobler and Christiaan Brandt moved to their new distances of 70 metres at the beginning of the year, and with 2019 being a qualifying year for Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020, they have their work cut out for them to improve their scores significantly during this sea-son.
The three archers had decent scores of 556, 605 and 490. But for them to compete in the Olympics and achieve their dream, more training and preparation is needed. Similarly, three beginners on the shooting circuit in Ricardo Alves, Dimitri de Wee (both com-pound) and Kristiaan van Breda (recurve) is slowly working towards participating in the longer distances by the end of the year. All three archers shot at a distance of 30 metres on Saturday, and they are excited to rise up to the challenges of 50 and 70 metres by the end of the year. Three Robin Spot prizes were awarded to archers Kristiaan van Breda, Pikkie Robinson and Ilana Malan, who shot an arrow closest to the centre of the target.