The first weekend in February saw the Hampshire Archery Association holding their Championship weekend at Fleming Park in Eastleigh.
Saturday was a WA18 ranking round followed by a Head to Head knockout competition. In the morning, Vicky Loader shot a new Hampshire County Record for the WA18 round to rank number 1 seed in the Ladies Compound. Ruth Watson seeded in 7th place. Vicky managed to reach the gold medal match in the afternoon head to heads but was beaten in the final by Zoe Gray from Guernsey so had to settle for Silver.
Sunday was the day of the actual County Championship and although we only had a small turnout of archers from Andover, they achieved quite remarkable results:
Abbie Loader became the HAA Ladies Recurve Indoor Champion for the first time taking the gold medal by a clear 15 points from her nearest challenger.
In the Ladies Compound, it was a three way battle between Vicky, Ruth and Zoe. It was the lady from Guernsey who deservedly triumphed, shooting another HAA County record in the process. Vicky took silver just 2 points ahead of Ruth who took the bronze medal.
However, Vicky and Ruth had a measure of revenge when they won the Compound Team gold medal with fellow Andover Archers members Paul Baptiste and Sophie Meyrick taking bronze in the same event. Sophie also won gold in the junior ladies compound and Brett Stringer won silver in the gents Barebow.
Finally, the Andover team of Abbie, Julian Piper and Simon Smith won silver medals in the recurve team event.
Congratulations to everyone who took part!