Archers on target for a Tokyo medal
Shropshire archers Patrick Huston, Sarah Bettles and Naomi Folkard helped lift the curtain on the Tokyo Olympic Games shooting competitive scores in their ranking event.
Archery was one of a handful of sports, including rowing, shooting, football and baseball, to get underway before the Games were officially started at yesterday’s opening ceremony.
The three archers make up half of Team GB’s squad of six in Japan and took aim in the rankings round, which are used to determine seedings for the individual women’s and men’s competitions, as well as the mixed teams events.
And Telford duo Huston and Bettles achieved Team GB’s top scores in the respective male and female events, which means they both qualified to compete in today’s mixed teams day, which will see medals handed out by close of play in Tokyo.
Belfast-born Huston, who lives in Madeley, shot 658, while Bettles, who also lives in Telford, fired 653. World. No.52 Huston – at his second Games after Rio – ranked 25th from 64 in the men’s event. Debutant Bettles, world No.81, finished 15th from 64 women.
The mixed event discipline is making its debut appearance at the Olympics, other medals available for recurve archers on the men’s and women’s individuals and men’s and women’s teams.
Newport-based Folkard, competing at her fifth Games, shot 629 as GB’s women’s team, featuring Bettles and Bryony Pitmen, qualified ninth with a score of 1,916 for the women’s team final, taking place tomorrow.
Huston, Lilleshall-based James Woodgate and Tom Hall qualified 10th in the men’s event with 1,959. Their team final goes ahead on Monday.
Archers began firing at Yumenoshima Park in the pandemic-affected Games yesterday morning, with no spectators permitted to watch action.
Men’s and women’s individual competition takes place next week, with the finals next weekend.
Games debutant Bettles said: “I really enjoyed it. I was shaking a lot to begin with, I was coming up to draw and being like, ‘please stop shaking before my hand reaches my anchor’.
“That wore off about halfway through which was good.
“It was hot, that has its own challenges because your hand gets sweaty and you need to be able to have good contact with the bow.”
“You start to lose a lot of concentration with the heat.
“We’re stood there for four minutes solid under the sun, and at that point I can’t reapply any chalk, I can’t have a drink.
“For the most part, it’s dealing with the sweat.”
