Rotorua's Scott Brown is on target for this weekend's East Coast Bay of Plenty Archery Championships in Whakatane.
After winning the men's crossbow division - finishing 54 points clear of his nearest rival - during the recent indoor National Archery Championships in Gisborne, Brown is aiming to dominate
the target and field events at the Whakatane Archery Club.
"While I want to win my division, this weekend is about the people - it's about shooting with our friends throughout the region," he said.
Brown, who has been involved in the sport for over 10 years, will contest the Canadian 900 round (30 arrows shot at 55m, 45m and 35m) and the field event, which sees archers complete two rounds of a 12 target course set at distances ranging from 10m to 60m.
He will be joined by nine Rotorua archers at the two-day event including his wife Wendy, also competing in the crossbow; experienced women's compound archer Gail Legg, under-18 junior men's recurve archer Hamish Randle, under-16 men's compound archer Craig MacRae and five novice competitors.
Legg, Randle and MacRae will all attempt to qualify for the championship trophies by entering all three events - the clout, field and target.
Randle, 15, hopes to defend his under-18 junior men's recurve title after scoring 286 (clout), 215 (field) and 653 (target) last year.
The Rotorua Lakes High School student said he became inspired to take up the sport three years ago after watching Legolas the elf in the The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
His interest and desire to practise outside of school hours has earned him top performances recently including third place in the under-16 division at last month's indoor champs.
Whakatane Archery Club's Bryan Purser is expecting 30 competitors from Hamilton, Rotorua, Gisborne and Whakatane to contest the championships.
The clout, which consists of 36 arrows shot at distances ranging from 80m up to 185m, and field event will be held on Saturday and the target event on Sunday.
