On This Week in Sport History ~ Archery

27^th

Welsh-archer Reginald Brooks-King was born on this day in 1861. He was born in Monmouth, Wales, the son of Colonel James Pearce King. Educated at Malvern, where he was a Prefect, a member of the First Cricket and Football XIs. He left in 1879 and enrolled to study Engineering in the Dept of Engineering and Applied Sciences at King’s College (1879-81). From 1882 to 1885 he was a Premium Apprentice with the London and North Western Railways under the famous railway engineer F W Webb, on completing his apprenticeship he was employed in the running shed of the LNWR at Rugby and in various other locations before becoming firstly Assistant Engineer and then Locomotive Engineer for the Quebrada Railway Land and Copper Co.  He was Grand National Archery Champion between 1901 and 1903 and the secretary of the organisation in 1904 and is credited for the revival of the West Somerset Archery Club. Chosen to present GB at the 1908 Olympics, he won silver medal in the men’s double York behind William Dod but 8 points ahead of Henry B. Richardson in third. He was also a keen cricketer and was secretary of Somerset Cricket club for many years.  During his spare-time he was a inventor and patented a bowling machine, one of which was still in use at the Somerset County ground way after WWII.  Another passion was radio and he was one of the first to establish a wireless transmission station on the Blackdowns. He obtained an amateur licence in 1919 and his 2C1 station, which was still transmitting during the second, has a record of communication with almost every part of the world. In later life Reginald became an estate agent and died on 19^th September 1938 aged 77 in Devon.

 

28^th

Born on this day in 1859 – Lida Scott Howell, an American female archer who won three gold medals in Archery at the 1904 Summer Olympics in Missouri in the double national and Columbia rounds and for the US team.  Her father, Thomas Scott, is the oldest archer ever to have competed in the Olympics. Archery was included in five of the earliest Olympics and, as it had been considered a suitable leisure pursuit for upper class women for some time, women were allowed to participate. Lida Scott became interested in archery around 1878. It was a result of a few articles she had read, written by Maurice Thompson. In 1881, she won the Ohio State archery championship and repeated this achievement in 1882. In the spring of 1883 she married Millard C. Howell and also won her first national championship. Her dedication to the sport continued and by 1907, she had won seventeen national titles. She competed in archery at the St Louis Olympic Games in 1904, winning two gold medals. Her score for the national round archery was 620 and for Columbia round archery, 867. Her scores in the 1895 championship set records which were not broken until 1931 – 36 years later. She and her husband won the National Archery Association’s National championships in 1899, the only time in the history of the association that a husband and wife have won both the titles in the same year. As an archer, she was clearly a woman ahead of her time. In 1904 a reporter from the Cincinnati Times Star interviewed Lida after winning her 15th championship. When asked why she preferred archery over other sports, she replied, “Archery is a picturesque game, the range with its smooth green and distant glowing target with its gold and radiating red, blue, black, and white, the white-garbed players, with graceful big bows and flying arrows, makes a beautiful picture.” The reporter commented that the love of archery with her is surely inborn. She retired from National Competition in 1907. After the 1920 Olympics, archery was discontinued until 1972 due to a lack of standardized international rules.  Lida passed away on 20^th December 1938.

 

29^th

Angela Goodall, British archer was born today in 1961 in Glasgow. She was affiliated to the Bangor and District Archery club in Ireland for some time, and during 1980s when she was a member the club saw their membership flourish. Angela took part in the 1982 Commonwealth Games, representing Ireland, where she was placed 17^th. She competed in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in the individual event. The event which took place in El Dorado Park, Long Beach, California was dominated by the North Korean and Chinese athletes, Angela was placed 30^th overall and New Zealander Neroli Fairhall coning in 35^th place, a paraplegic athlete, who competed while seated in a wheelchair. In the same year Angela won the silver medal at the world field archery championships which took place in Hyvinkää, Finland.  She also coached, among others, ex-British champion Francis O’Neill, from Northern Ireland.

30^th

French archer Sophie Dodemont was born on this day in 1973 in Pont-Sainte-Maxence. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Sophie finished her ranking round with a total of 632 points. This gave her the 32nd seed for the final competition bracket in which she faced Anja Hitzler in the first round. Anja won and Sophie was eliminated. Together with Bérengère Schuh and Virginie Arnold she also took part in the team event. With her 632 score from the ranking round combined with the 645 of Bérengère and the 626 of Virginie the French team was in fifth position after the ranking round, which gave them a straight seed into the quarter finals. With 218-211 they were too strong for the Polish team. In the semi-final against South Korea they scored only 184 points with the Koreans scoring 213, missing out on the final. They recovered in the bronze medal match, beating Great Britain 203-201 to claim the medal. Sophie later converted to the compound discipline, achieving success including a team bronze medal at the 2013 World Archery Championships. She won the world title in March 2014 at the Nimes indoor championships. In 2014, she also set a new European record for the 72-arrow 50-metre qualification round – with 701 out of 720 – at the second Archery World Cup stage in Medellin, before winning mixed team gold at the same tournament. She retired from competition immediately after the 2014 Europeans, after amassing an extraordinary trophy collection, while all the time working as a policewoman but with world medals in outdoor, indoor and field archery and in both the recurve and compound bow – she decided to concentrate on her professional work. “I decided to quit today,” Sophie wrote on her Facebook page. “I reached all my sporting goals: I’m an Olympic medallist, World Champion, world medallist in three categories with two types of bow.”

 

31^st

Jitbahadur Muktan born today in 1979 is a right-handed Nepalese recurve archer. He competed at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and is a member of the Manang Marshyangdi Archery Team based in Kathmandu. Before the Games he bagged three gold medals at the third Laxman Kumar Shrestha Memorial National Indoor Archery Tournament organised by Nepal Archery Association. Through a wildcard entry, he won the individual, team and mixed categories gold medal in Recurve event. Moktan, who had won the mixed section on the first day, defeated Ramesh Bhattachan of Himalayan Archery in the individual section today, Amrit Gurung of Kaski Archery finished third. At the Rio Games he was placed equal 33 in the final rankings

1^st September

Irish archer Keith Hanlon was born on this day in 1966. The veteran archer has competed in all 12 Target World Championships since 1993 and at the 1996 Olympic Games. He first took up the sport in 1988 when an ex-girlfriend was attending a course and asked him if he would like to try, he said yes and a year later was on the national team. He recalled that by the late 1990s there was only one archery shop in Ireland, which didn’t always stock what Keith and his colleagues needed. So their coach suggested they did something about it and Keith set up his own archery shop in his garage. This is now his full time job, which allows him to practice when custom is slow. Keith explains how the weather can have a big impact on the sport – if you’re inside a deep wood, you don’t get too many problems with the wind or rain he says but when he went to his first World Field Championships in 2008 in Wales, it rained from the day we the team arrived, all the way through the tournament. Two ladies slipped and hurt themselves and the local mountain rescue team were called in to take them off the hill. At the 1996 Games Keith was the last person to attend a Games from Ireland in the archery – with only 64 places worldwide, it’s difficult to get a spot.  Keith has tried out for every Olympics since and has been close, but Ireland is quite a small country which makes it difficult to compete with the larger pools, their resources and backing. His memories of those Atlanta Games began with been given only three days to prepare and get his coach, who lived in Holland, to meet him in America. Despite the last minute rush Keith recorded a national record, finishing in 22^nd place. He loves his sport, prior to taking up archery he was heavily into Judo, trying out for the Irish team, but within a year, archery had captivated him and he still loves the buzz that he gets when letting an arrow go.

 

2^nd

Canadian archer Brenda Cuming was born today in New Zealand in 1958. Affiliated to the Victoria Bowmen club she competed at the 1988 Seoul Olympics where she was place 34^th and at the 1898 World Archery Championships, which were held in in July in Lausanne, where she finished in 84^th place.