Archery

The competition takes place at Cronkbourne Cricket Club in Tromode the traditional home of target archery in the Isle of Man. Tromode is situated on the outskirts of Douglas 5km from the town centre.

THE COMPETITION a double FITA round

First Round

Second Round

The INDIVIDUAL and TEAM events are decided from the total scores of the 4 days competition.

The competition will be held under the IGA bye laws relative to the event.

ARCHERY competitions in this year's NatWest Island Games will take place at Cronkbourne Cricket Club's Tromode venue.

There are 11 islands entered for the event, which will be a double FITA round held under IGA bye laws.
For both the recurve ( otherwise know as "Olympic" as it is the only archery event contested at the Olympics ) and compound disciplines, the women archers will shoot at targets at distances of 70, 60 , 50 and 30 metres, while the men must shoot distances of 90, 70, 50 and 30 metres.
The targets at the two shorter distances are 80 centimetres wide, whereas those at 60, 70 and 90 metres have a diameter of 122 cm. Each participant must shoot three ends of 12 arrows at each distance, to make a total of 144 arrows per round.

There will be both individual and team competitions, the results of which will be decided from the archers individual scores. Each nation must have a minimum of three men and one woman for a recurve team, two men and one woman for a compound team.
An island can send a maximum of four men and two women for a recurve team, and three men and two women for a compound team, but the overall team result will be calculated using the top scores from the minimum number of archers permitted.

International archery judge, Peter Morris ( who officiated at the Paralympics in Sydney ), will be brought over for next July's event, as will officials Bill French and Roger MacMullan. The latter officiated at the Games in the Isle of Wight, Gibraltar & Jersey.
There will also be a local based timekeeper for the event, as archers are required to shoot a certain number of arrows in an allotted time.
Participants must shoot six arrows at the further distances in four minutes, three arrows at the shorter distances in two minutes. A traffic light system determines when archers are allowed to shoot.

The sport has certainly moved on from the times of Robin Hood and is nowadays highly technical, not to mention expensive, with a carbon-fibre arrow costing in the region of £16. Each competitor at next July's Games is likely to have 12 matched arrows.
Tournament bows, both recurve and compound, complete with their stabiliser systems and sights, cost in the region of £1000 each.

The Manx competitors, who will be selected from the one target archery club on the Island, will be looking to go one better than the silver medal achieved by the compound team in Gotland.
One of the Isle of Man's top prospects for a medal should be Joy Gough, as she won the women's individual compound gold medal at the last Games..