DARRINGTON, Wash. – Fresh from his mixed team gold medal at last week’s World Cup Stage 3 in Colombia, ace recurve archer Brady Ellison is among those competing at the USA Archery Field Nationals this weekend.
Compound competition is led by world number three Paige Pearce, with barebow also featuring over the two days in beautiful Darrington, situated at the foot of the North Cascades mountain valley, and around two hours north-east of Seattle.
Competition gets underway on Saturday morning, when archers navigate the testing terrain and take aim at 24 unmarked targets. On Sunday, archers turn their attention to 24 marked targets.
On Friday, under sunny skies, the archers were able to warm-up on a practice field and a practice course, but they were not allowed access, or any prior knowledge of the competition targets.
Once they step on the designated mark, they will have three minutes to fire off their three arrows, before moving onto the next target.
This form of the sport is far from straightforward. The ground is not level, and the targets may be above or below the archers’ feet, meaning they have to take gradient into account. It is archery, but with a fair amount of hiking mixed in!
BetweenEnds will provide the latest scores and results, with daily photo galleries on USA Archery’s Smug Mug account.
< Back to All News
