Archery stars shine at All Ireland Series in Belfast

Competitors from as far away as Cork, Waterford and Birmingham entered to go head to head against each other at Leg 5 of the six round series, in a bid to qualify for the finals in September.

The two day event began with a 144 arrow round on Saturday, and a knock out stage on Sunday.  

Host club - City of Belfast Archers led by Tournament Organiser Robert Hall - raised the standard for archery competition with the first use of electronic scoring system in Ireland was successfully rolled out.

Rebekah Tipping - a member of the City of Belfast Archers and current British University Champion - won Day One in a strong Ladies Recurve field. She then followed this up with a new Northern Irish record on Sunday in the 72 arrow qualifying round, scoring 625 points out of 720.

Jake Walsh - who won silver at the European Archery Championships in Bucharest last month - retained his Cadet Compound title from last year’s event with an impressive score of 1396 out of 1440 that beat all the Seniors.

With the event open to all archers, the local Longbow contingent was out in force on day one competing against archers who were shooting more modern equipment.

Local City of Belfast Archery club member Norman Earle won the Men’s event with an impressive 621 in 144 arrows.

With a record attendance at the event, notable absences included local archer Patrick Huston, who was travelling to compete at the Rio Olympics.