Archers out to cash in as Vegas comes to Gisborne

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ARCHERY

“SHOW me the money” will be the catchcry when top archers from throughout the North Island line up at the Gizzy Vegas Shoot here over the weekend.

Gisborne Archery Club is hosting the popular shoot, which does not differentiate between sex or age.

Male and females alike will aim at targets 18 metres away in three divisions — recurve, compound and a combined recurve/compound section.

Long-time Gisborne Archery Club president David Croskery said entries had been confirmed from archers from Wellington, Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua and Napier.

Among them will be members of the New Zealand team who competed recently in the first leg of the Archery World Cup in Shanghai.

Croskery expects Gisborne to mount a strong challenge through the likes of Will Halliday, Chloe Underdown, Chris Underdown and Dean Croskery, who will be back from Victoria University to compete.

The Gizzy shoot is based on the Vegas Shoot — the largest and most prestigious indoor archery shoot in the world, attracting over 3500 archers from novices to Olympians vying for a prize pool of over $600,000 in cash and scholarships.

The Gizzy shoot is a little less lucrative but it does give competitors a taste of the pressure that comes with competing for cash.

Competitors face ranking rounds tomorrow. On Sunday they have matchplay, from which the winners will emerge.

The winners of the recurve and compound divisions will pocket 20 percent of the entry fees for each division.

The first competitive arrows will hit boards at 9am tomorrow.