Two Williams Lake archers recently made their way south to Las Vegas, Nev. for the largest and most prestigious indoor archery tournament in the world, the Vegas Shoot.
Junior archer Ty Thurow, 12, and his coach, Al Campsall, joined more than 3,000 archers from around the globe for the event, which ran from Jan. 29-31.
There, competitors took aim at paper targets set at 18 metres in distance with a 10 spot the size of a loonie.
“I was very proud of my student, Ty, and his shooting,” Campsall said.
“Although shooting against boys up to the age of 14, Ty hung in and finished 50th out of 100 against the top youth shooters from around the globe.”
Campsall said Ty got off to a rough start in front of large crowds, but showed significant maturity when he rallied to a strong finish.
Ty’s top score for the weekend was a 285/300 — a very respectable score, Campsall noted.
“I, on the other hand, started strong but had to settle for a top third finish against more than 1,000 of the top archers in the world,” he said, adding it would be difficult to calculate his exact finish due to the sheer number of archers competing and the way they are flighted at the tournament.
“Each flight contains about 35 archers who all shoot the final day,” he said.
His top score was 294/300.
“Ty has not caught me yet, but I expect it in the near future,” he said.
“We’re both keen to get home and work on some skills and techniques we gleaned from our experiences.”
The next shoot for members of the Cariboo Archers will be in two weeks in Cloverdale, which is a warmup for the Canadian Indoor 3D Championships held at the same location at the beginning of April.
The pair travelled with their families to the shoot.
“It was exhilarating to have our two families here cheering for us,” Campsall said.