Story by REDintern Lim Ying Xian. Photos by Zachary Foo and Clara Yuan/Red Sports
Ang Hwee Ying (left) and other Compound archers on the shooting line. (Photo 1 © Zachary Foo/Red Sports)
NTU Sports and Recreational Centre Multipurpose Field, March 8, 2014 – Archers Clarence Tan of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Crystal Wong of Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) set two records each at the 6th NTU Institutional Archery Championships (NTU IAC).
For the Best Distance Awards, Ang Hwee Ying of NP was the winner for the Compound Open while Clarence Tan of NTU was the winner for the Recurve Intermediate.
There were 167 archers from nine institutions battling it out in six categories over the weekend. Day 1 saw archers battling out in the qualifying rounds, which consisted of two rounds of 36 arrows each and a maximum score of 720 points. The results of the qualifying rounds determined the placement of the top 32 archers who would move on to fight in the individual elimination rounds. The archer with the highest score in a single qualifying round (36 arrows) in each of the four distance divisions were awarded the Best Distance Award.
The Recurve Open and Recurve Novice archers started the competition first. In the first Recurve Open qualifying round, Chan Jing Ru of the National University of Singapore (NUS) scored 305 to rank first.
Koh Zun Jie of NP was ranked first in the Recurve Novice qualifying round with a score of 318, while teammate Elena Liu scored 293 to rank first among the Recurve Novice women.
Being new to competing at 30m, Zun Jie said, “I’m pretty satisfied and pretty shocked at my performance, because this is the first time I am scoring for 30m. I had never had a chance to compare with my scores from training.”
The second qualifying round saw a different Best Distance Award winner when Tan Si Lie of NTU scored 307 to rank first in the Recurve Open (70m) category. His overall qualifying score of 612 also put him first in the qualifying rounds.
Si Lie, who is also a National archer and a silver medallist at the 2013 SEA Games, with a personal best of 331, did not perform up to his own expectations. He said, “I think this is not my best performance and I should be able to do better than this. I think I need to overcome some mental barrier which is like, I tend to be a little bit more careful when shooting scoring ends, that’s why it resulted in a not-very-stable form.”
Chan Jing Ru of NUS and Myk Yan Meng of NP were tied for second with overall scores of 592 each, prompting the first one-arrow shootout as a tie-breaker in this competition. Myk Yan Meng defeated Chan Jing Ru 8–5 in the shootout to finish second.
Koh Zun Jie of NP lost his first place in Recurve Novice Men to Abdul Rahman of NTU after the second qualifying round. Abdul Rahman scored 311 in the second round and had an overall qualifying score of 627 to rank first. Zun Jie was second with an overall score of 626 and Phuan Wen Chuen of NUS was third with 616.
Elena Liu of NP faced a similar fate when she lost her first-place ranking in the Recurve Novice Women category to fellow NP archer Karen Chew after the second qualifying round. Karen Chew scored 295 in the second round, five more than Elena Liu. Karen Chew had 587 points overall. Goh Tze Yui of NTU was third with 576.
Compound Open and Recurve Intermediate archers shot in the afternoon and that was when we saw even exciting highlights. After firing 72 arrows in the qualification rounds, two top-scoring archers each from both categories had to go into a shootout for the Best Distance Award.
Ang Hwee Ying of NP and Pang Qing Liang of NTU were tied at 319 for their second qualifying round. Hwee Ying eventually won the one-arrow shootout 10–9 to clinch the Best Distance Award for the Compound Open (50m) category. With regards to her win for best distance, she said, “I think the shoot-off was ok, by shooting a 10. But the overall (qualification) score wasn’t very good. I think I can do better than this. I need to train more and to work on my mental (training), because I feel that it’s quite weak. I think I need to build up on confidence as well.”
Clarence Tan of NTU was tied at 287 with Benjamin Chang of Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) in his second qualifying round. With serious focus and a steady bow arm, Clarence shot a perfect 10 points against Benjamin’s 8 points in the shootout to clinch the Best Distance Award for Recurve Intermediate (50m). Clarence expressed his relief at the outcome of the shootout. “Heading to the one-arrow shootout, I was actually quite nervous. I tried to keep myself calm and tried to ignore what’s around me, so shooting the 10 was a pretty lucky shot.”
Clarence also clinched first place in the Recurve Intermediate Men category and set a new IAC record for the Recurve Intermediate Men Double-50m (D50m) with a 568-point performance. The previous record of 531 was set by Muhd Firdaus of NP in 2013. Both Clarence and Benjamin had also set a new record for the Recurve Intermediate Men Single-50m score with 287. The previous record of 284 was set by Tan Xiang Ren of NUS in 2013.
Crystal Wong of NP set two new records. She scored 551 in the the Recurve Intermediate Women D50m and 283 in the Single-50m. Elaine Ho of NUS was the previous record holder with 497 and 268 respectively in 2013.
Qualification (Top 3)
Recurve Novice Men
1st Abdul Rahman (NTU) – 627
2nd Koh Zun Jie (NP) – 626
3rd Phuan Wen Chuen (NUS) – 616
Recurve Novice Women
1st Chew Xiao Hui Karen (NP) – 587
2nd Elena Liu Li Ling (NP) – 583
3rd Goh Tze Yui (NTU) – 576
Recurve Intermediate Men
1st Clarence Tan (NTU) – 568
2nd Benjamin Chang Jiale (NYP) – 556
3rd Zhang Zhenjie Justin (NUS) – 553
Recurve Intermediate Women
1st Crystal Wong (NP) – 551
2nd Tay Yu Xin (NP) – 519
3rd Angeline Lee (NTU) – 509
Recurve Open
1st Tan Si Lie (NTU) – 612
2nd Myk Yan Meng (NP) – 592, 8-point shootout
3rd Chan Jing Ru (NUS) – 592, 5-point shootout
Compound Open
1st Chew Der Lun (NP) – 635
2nd Ang Hwee Ying (NP) – 632
3rd Chong Geng Ming (NP) – 628
Best Distance Scores
Recurve Novice (30m)
Koh Zun Jie (NP) – 318
Recurve Intermediate (50m)
Clarence Tan (NTU) – 287, 10-point shootout
Recurve Open (70m)
Tan Si Lie (NTU) – 307
Compound Open (50m)
Ang Hwee Ying (NP) – 319, 10-point shootout
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