Leamington Olympic archer Naomi Folkard (Dunlop, Coventry), warming up for the European Indoor Championships at the beginning of March, last weekend put in a very convincing performance at the National Indoor Championships. At the Lilleshall National Sports Centre in Shropshire, she won the ladies’ recurve trophy for the fifth time, surpassing Carol Sykes who won the event 4 times.

The competition, with recurves on Saturday and compounds on Sunday involved a FITA 18 ranking round (5 dozen arrows over 18 metres at a small 3 spot face) followed by an Olympic style knock out of 12 arrow head to head matches for the top 32 qualifiers. GB Olympic bronze medallist, Alison Williamson (Long Mynd) shot in the first session, setting a very high standard with 577. Folkard, in the second session, despite recently breaking her pb in practice with 589, made a poor start dropping 7 points on her first dozen (113 out of a possible 120). However, she then improved dramatically, dropping 9 points only on the next 4 dozen arrows to finish with a superb 119 dozen, and a final, world class, ranking score of 584. This gave her first place, followed by Williamson, and Jenny Jepphsson (a Swede from Edinburgh University) 574.

There were some close high-scoring head to head matches, particularly those involving the top ladies, and it looked as though it would produce a hard fight for medals. As expected Folkard sailed through the early rounds beating Charlotte George (Isle of Man) 117 to 104 and Wendy Stevens 116 to 110. She then met Amy Oliver, the European Field Champion, winning 117 to 108, after which she had a surprisingly easy victory in the semi final, over Emma Downie, who will be a team mate in the European Indoor Championships, 116 to 104. Alison Williamson beat the on-form Jepphson in the other semi-final. The gold match between Folkard and Williamson, who are great friends and have trained together for many years at Coventry’s Dunlop club, was not as tight as expected. Folkard who was shooting first started with a 10, which Williamson did not match. Folkard went into the lead after the first end of 3 arrows with 29 points to Williamson’s 27. A repeat score in the second end brought them to 58 to 54. In the third end Williamson put in 3 superb arrows, all 10s, but this was not enough to pull back and they went in to the last end at 87 to 84. Folkard maintained her 10,10,9 pattern to finish on 116, while Williamson dropped a further point to finish oyn 112. Jepphsson took bronze, beating Downie 114 to112.

Folkard, together with Williamson, Dave Beardsley (GNAS) and Leroy Watson (Stafford) took the Regional Team Trophy for the West Midlands.

PHOTO: Folkard with the ladies’ trophy after the event. (She is wearing the jacket of one of her sponsors, Leamington estate agent Malcolm Hawkesford. She is also sponsored by solicitors Wright Hassall.)