Moray hosts Scottish Archery Tour finals as three local archers collect medals

ARCHERS from across the United Kingdom flocked to Moray as the area played host to the high-profile Scottish Archery Tour finals.

Moray hosted the first stage of a four-stage competition in April, which culminated with winners – four men and four women – qualifying for the final, which were again held locally.

Moray Archery, located around two miles outside Elgin, hosted the competition on September 9 – with four locals collecting medals.

Organiser Andrew Kelly said: "This was the pinnacle of events we could host and showcases to archers across Scotland and beyond what we can do in Moray.

"It is great to finally get higher-profile competitions to the area, which Moray Archery have managed to do in the past year or two. We hope to continue to do this in the future.

"It was a lot of work to set up and host, but, although there was a bit of a breeze on the day, the event went well and there was good feedback from the archers competing."

The four stages of the competition were held in Elgin, Ayr, Balbardie (near Livingston) and Aberdeen across summer.

Archers were ranked by the scores they shot at these competitions and the top four males and females for each bow type – compound bows, Olympic recurve bows and Barebows – were invited to the head-to-head finals.

Moray had four archers that qualified for the finals – David Swart and Andrew Kelly from Moray Archery, Ben Clinch from Forres Archers and Amy Wakefield, formerly of Milne's Archery but now living in Aberdeen.

David Swart won gold in the Gents Compound Bow class, Ben Clinch won silver in the Gents Barebow and Amy Wakefield won bronze in the Women's Compound Bow.

The CEO of Scottish Archery Lyndsay Noon was in attendance and awarded the medals.

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