Scarborough archery star Sarah Monteith earns superb silver medal at World 3D Championships
Monteith said: “I was selected to shoot for Great Britain at the World 3D Championships in Mokrice, Slovenia, following several qualification shoots around the country during the previous calendar year.
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Hide Ad“Myself and team-mate Jed Cullen made the cut in the Mixed Traditional Team event (top eight teams).
"On Thursday, in the relentless rain, we shot well and fought our way through a tough quarter-final against Italy (ranked second to GB's seventh), at the end of which we were tied at 131-131! A shoot-off was called to break the tie and this ended with both teams shooting 11, 10 (almost maximum score). Jed's 11 was closer to the very centre of the target, so we won that match.
“The semi-final was against Denmark (ranked sixth) and we shot really well and managed to win 125-107 and earn our place in the final against number 1 seeds Austria on Saturday. We were soaked to the skin, but overjoyed at getting ourselves into the finals. That was a day I will always remember!
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Hide Ad"On Saturday it was quite a challenge to keep shooting in my normal style, with a large audience, commentators, official photographers and TV cameras all around, plus a huge screen showing live footage for all to see, but somehow I managed to concentrate on the targets and shoot well.
“I had been up and slightly nervously waiting for the match since 5am, the match finally started at about 3.15pm. After all that waiting it seemed to be over in a flash to me (four targets, two arrows per archer at each target), but it actually took about 15 minutes.
“My arrows were generally good, and I even managed to get an 11 (top score) in the mix, which I am pleased with. The scoreline was pretty close at 140-129 to Austria.
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Hide Ad"Although we didn't get gold, we are proud of our silver medals, even more so as we had to fight so hard to get them!
“What a fantastic experience the World 3D Championships was. The overall feeling of love and respect from all archers of all the 31 nations (350 archers) was palpable and so nice to experience.
“I was lucky enough to shoot with archers from France, Serbia, San Marino, Mexico, Italy, Denmark and Austria. This is my first medal at a World Championships and feel very proud to have been able to achieve this.
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Hide Ad"Hopefully I can qualify for the team again and try to improve on this result in the future.”
Monteith narrowly missed out on making it to the last 16 of the individual event earlier in the week, losing a dramatic shoot off for the last elimination spot.
She said: "On day one of qualification the weather was sunny and warm (20c) and I shot with two ladies who shoot the same bow type as me (Traditional) - one from France and one from Serbia. I really enjoyed the course, though there were plenty of tricky long shots at smaller targets. I managed to score 345 for the round (four 11's and 10 10's) which I was happy with. I even managed a maximum score of 11 11 on one target.
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Hide Ad"I was ranked 11th overall with another different course to shoot the following morning.
"On day two of qualification, after a poor night's sleep, I didn't feel on quite as good shooting form, also the weather was really chilly and slightly rainy so I had to put layers on for shooting which I prefer not to do if possible.
"I was shooting with ladies from America, San Marino and Mexico for the day. I shot well, but not as well as I can on a good day, and ended the day with 341.
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Hide Ad"After about an hour it became clear that I had tied on score with an American lady, so I then ended up being thrown into a last-minute nail-biting/heart pounding shoot off in front of a crowd of several hundred archers to decide who would get the last elimination spot (16th) as we’d both scored 686 over the qualification rounds.
"I shot marginally high (less than half a centimetre) on an uphill 25m shot, but my opponent was closer to the centre so she was declared the winner, and there ended my individual run at the World title.”