Two Williams Lake archers successfully defended their titles Aug. 2-10 at the Canadian 3D Archery Championships in Woodstock, NB.
Fred Streleoff, now a two-time national champion in the men’s instinctive recurve class, and Al Campsall, now a 10-time national champion in the men’s compound division, both fought through incessant downpour through most of the competition to repeat as Canadian champions.
“Fred dominated from start to finish,” Campsall said, adding his path to the title had a few more rough patches.
Trailing by 14 points on the final day of the competition, Campsall battled back to win the men’s masters 50 event by eight points.
Both Streleoff and Campsall represented Team B.C. at nationals.
Two days later Campsall shot in the field portion of the Canadian Outdoor Championships — an event he’s relatively new to.
“A rookie mistake cost me the silver medal,” he said. “Imagine my group of four shooters approaching a target in the woods with four columns of three small bull’s-eye targets each.
“The first two to shoot are assigned columns A and C, the next pair shoot B and D.”
Campsall said he stepped up to the shooting line and scored perfect bull’s-eyes each for six points on his first two shots, then scored a five on his last shot, totalling 17 of a possible 18 points, noting he was pleased as he stepped away from the line.
“Then, as the next pair approached the shooting line, the guy supposed to shoot the D column noticed that my three arrows were blocking his bull’s-eyes.
“So, I forfeited my 17 points and the eventual silver medal.”
Campsall settled for fifth place in field archery, following that event up with two more days of a separate event, target archery.
“The target portion saw me finish sixth overall in Canada,” he said, noting his mistake in the field portion of the championships has only made him want to improve more in those events.
“This setback has only strengthened my resolve to master this target archery stuff.
“To that end I have already enrolled in an archery workshop in the fall on Vancouver Island and another in the Lower Mainland with several of the top archery gurus in Canada.”
In October both Campsall and Streleoff will travel to Sassari, Italy to compete as members of Team Canada at the 2013 World 3D Archery Championships.
Campsall is representing Canada in the compound men’s division.
Streleoff will shoot in the instinctive men’s recurve division.