A young Burnham-On-Sea archery enthusiast is celebrating success after winning a national competition.
Molly Joyce and her brother Darragh Joyce competed at the Junior National Archery Competition, held at Lilleshall in Shropshire, over the weekend.
Archers competed on both the Saturday and Sunday, shooting a 144 arrow Metric round on the Saturday and a 144 arrow Imperial round on the Sunday, which in the heat of the weekend was a very demanding task.
Molly was competing in the U12 girls longbow category, while Darragh was competing in the U14 recurve category.
On both Saturday and Sunday Molly not only won the national title in her age group but was also the highest scoring longbow archer on the field.
On the Saturday she had to shoot at a target placed between 30m and 10m away, and on the Sunday it was between 30 yards and 10 yards away.
Both her scores were huge personal bests and qualified towards a Junior Master Bowman classification, for which she now needs to shoot a third qualifying score.
On Saturday Darragh placed 2nd, and on the Sunday placed 3rd, shooting at a target between 50m and 20m away on the Saturday, and 50 and 20 yards on the Sunday.
This meant that he has been on the podium in all 8 national outdoor competitions he has competed in since the age of 10. His performance was all the more impressive in that he shot all weekend wearing an orthopaedic boot having broken a bone in his foot 4 weeks previously.
Both children are members of Burnham Company of Archers, based at the BASC ground.
Darragh attends King Alfred School, and Molly is in her final few weeks at Brent Knoll Primary before joining her brother at King Alfred School next year.
