9 February 2006 - Archery Enters Dubai

Archery Enters Dubai

Lausanne - 9 February 2006

The Dubai Archers held their 1st Open Archery Competition at Dubai Country Club. The turn-out was excellent among the competitors and the fans.

Although traditional archery has been present in the United Arab Emirates for a long time, modern competitions have been growing for the recent years with events staged in Hatta in the Dubai Emirate.

The Dubai Archers Club is nowadays taking a lot of initiatives to expand and organize the archery activities in the country and they have been running school programs to introduce archery to the kids in the area. The next step was to organize a real competition, which was done with the 1st Open Archery Competition in Dubai on Friday, January 27th.

The event started at noon with the Novice Competitions (shooting 6 ends = 36 arrows). This gave people who do not have their own equipment but have done some archery the opportunity to join the competition.

The novices were divided into 2 sections, one of which focused on children (shooting 10 meters). Over 14 young archers took part in this competition, with the 12-year old winner scoring 328 with a perfect end of six arrows all in the bull (maximum possible score of 60 points). The 22 senior novices also shot 6 ends at a distance of 20 meters. The winner scored a very good 228.

At the same time a 3D Archery competition was taking place on seven constructed animal targets. The challenge in this discipline is that the targets are set at different distances over a desert field with the targets set at very awkward angles. Each competitor shoots three arrows only on each target. 11 archers competed in a competition where the scoring is done very much like golf with a different score for each animal. The winner in this Field competition shot 26 points out of a maximum of 36.

The main event of the day started at 3pm with 12 ends of 6 arrows (=72 arrows). The 14 Compound Bow archers division shot at 50 meters while the 11 Recurve archers shot at 30 meters. The winner in Compound scored 577 points out of a maximum 720, and the best Recurve archer achieved an excellent score of 584.

This first competition organized by the Dubai Archers was a great success and they are all looking forward to next year, as this will now be an annual event.

For more information, please contact info@dubaiarchers.com or visit the following pages:

www.dubaiarchers.com

www.dubaiarchers.com/test/index.html

www.yahoogroups.com/archeryindubai

Ludivine Maitre Wicki

FITA Communication