Lewis & Harris Sports Council's annual Sports Festival archery event, held this year on Saturday 27th February, saw entry numbers climb to new heights, partly due to a recent renaissance at local archery club Island Archers, and partly to three brave novices who had taken part in the archery taster event held immediately prior to the competition pluckily deciding to get stuck in and see how they got on.

Island Archers Chairman Toby Marshall set his stall out early in the individual competition, and never looked back throughout, whilst the competition for second, third, and fourth and fifth was extremely hard fought, with numerous place-changing between Stuart Oakley, Jason Spinks, Ken Le Goubin, and Ladies competition-winner Heide Macleod.

Further back the field, the novices competition was also a raging battle. Michelle Paton prevailed, even managing to better some of her more experienced shooting line compatriots for a time, whilst John Graham lead his thrown-together 'New Boys' team from the front, and put in a creditable 121 to take ninth and second-placed novice. His charismatic team-mate Donald Macleod put in a late charge, and was only just thwarted by some wayward arrows toward the end.

Initial enthusiasm from the junior section was, disappointingly, not translated into tournament entries, but eventual Junior winner Mark Spinks showed great depth of character to put a poor early performance behind him and climb the leader board to eighth, whilst taster-session novice Callum Stark did his best to follow, but was sadly thwarted by a number of excursions into the backstop netting.

With one of his team having to drop out at a late stage due to other commitments, New Guns team captain Ken Le Goubin was able to secure the services of veteran archer Toby Marshall, and with leading performances from all four team members, the team gold was never in doubt. That said, an honourable mention must go to second-placed team The Arrows and third-placed novice ladies team Amazon Archers, who both put in a very creditable performance against the odds. Commiserations to the New Boys team, who were put together at the last minute, but were unable to find a fourth team member, so never had the ability to compete with such a handicap.

Thanking the Lewis & Harris Sports Council for their generous assistance in organising the competition, tournament winner Toby Marshall commented, "I'm slightly surprised, but delighted to take the gold, but I'm even more delighted to see such a huge number new faces and a renewed enthusiasm for the sport. With this event becoming such a success, lets hope we can keep the momentum going, and hopefully have the wherewithal to put together a competitive Western Isles archery team in time for the next Island Games."

A full set of results can be found here.

Junior Winner Mark Spinks	Team Winners New Guns Plus One	Senior Gents Winner Toby Marshall
	Team Members (L-R) Jason Spinks Toby Marshall Mark Spinks Ken Le Goubin (capt)
All photos © Rod Huckbody / Stornoway Gazette