In a superb display of technical skill and accuracy, Dion Buhagiar and Luke Pellicano set two new important National Records for the Fita Round in the Men Compound and Cadet Recurve categories respectively during the outdoor shoot held at the Marsa Sports Grounds on the 28th and 29th October. Both archers, who had started training early for this year’s competitive season under National Coach John Schembri were therefore well prepared to take advantage of the prevailing excellent weather conditions.
Saturday afternoon, on the long distances, Buhagiar immediately took an early lead with with 305 points on 90 metres and 324 points on 70metres, thus closing the first day with 629 points total. Following closely behind were Tony Falzon with 616 points, Kyvin Sant with 602 points and John Pace with 586 points. In the Men Recurve category, Kevin Bonnici shot a good total of 497 points for the same distances. Maria Formosa, in the Ladies Recurve ended the day’s shooting with a total of 434 points covering the 70 and 60 metre distances. On these same distances, Luke Pellicano started off with an excellent 244 and 277 points foe a total of 521 for the long distances. Dave Jones, shooting on 50metres in the Veteran Recurve Division finished with a total of 415 points. The Mini-Cadets Recurve division on 50 metres was led by Daniel Mangion with 372 followed by his brother Jeremy with 206 points.
Sunday morning, on the short distances , Buhagiar confidently maintained his consistent shooting form with a total of 332 points on the difficult 50 metre distance and finished off with 349 points on 30 metres thus establishing a new national record with 1310 points for the Men Compound FITA Round. Besides obtaining the internationally acknowledged FITA Star 1300 Award, Buhagiar also managed to obtain the best scores on all four individual distances. Kyvin Sant continued to shoot well and moved up into second place with a good total of 1239 points, closely followed by John Pace with 1236 points. Tony Falzon retired due to injury. In the Men Recurve division, Kevin Bonnici kept up his good form and closed off with 1085 points, whilst Maria Formosa in the Ladies Recurve finished with a total of 950 points. In the Cadets Recurve, Pellicano showed his potential by keeping up his excellent form with 259 points on 50 metres and 316 points on 30 metres thus setting a new national record with a commendable total score of 1096 points. The Mini-Cadets Recurve division on 30 metres was dominated by Daniel Mangion with a total score of 966 points followed by Jeremy Mangion with 677 points and Mark Bondin who only shot on the second day with a total of 483 points. The shoot was directed by Vincent Pellicano and judged by John Schembri.
The Archery Association has a very ambitious technical development programme which includes juniors and cadets. These good results at such an early stage of the season, augur well for the forthcoming international commitments .