Marais, Taljaard triumph in Tsumeb

Francois Marais and Elisabeth Taljaard were the standout shooters during last weekend’s Moruti Spar Shoot in Tsumeb as they won the compound men’s and compound women’s divisions respectively. The second competition of the year was supported by Moruti Spar, Butt Archery Supplies, Tsumeb Golf Club, Executive Auto Repairs, AS Engineering and NS Gifts. The tournament saw more than 40 archers from around the country go head to head in the Re-curve and Compound divisions. Francois Marais was the most successful archer in the men’s compound division. The athlete from Windhoek made his intentions clear during the qualification round, scoring an impressive 689 from a possible 720 points. Louw Nel, winner of the AFRO Pumps Shoot a month ago, secured the second best score (677), while Ben van Wyk placed third with a score of (662). The trio, together with Bernd Oosthuizen, then progressed to the elimination round where Marais made light work of Oosthuizen (145/77) to book himself a place in the final where Nel was waiting after defeating van Wyk (140/136). There was little that separated the pair in the gold medal match, but Marais was just too strong on the day. He scored 140 points, compared to Nel’s score of 134, to take home the win. Van Wyk came third. In other action, Taljaard, one of the most promising young archers in Namibia, took top honours in the women’s compound category. However, during qualification, Taljaard only managed the second best score (648) behind Ilana Malan (661). Liezel Schoeman achieved the third best score with 641 points. Taljaard continued her run during eliminations, triumphing over Brigitte Tietz and Schoeman to reach the final. Here she faced Malan. The final was a nail-biting affair. Both archers showed great composure. Eventually, Taljaard managed to beat her rival by the slightest of margins, scoring 133 points while Malan had to settle for 131 points. Development programme The Archery Association of Namibia (AAN) is holding the first development event of the season this weekend. The shoot is scheduled to take place tomorrow (08:00) at the SKW range in Windhoek. Each school is allowed to enter an unlimited number of teams, consisting of four archers. Each team must have a minimum of one girl. The teams will participate as a group in the elimination round and as individuals in the ranking round. So far, more than 20 archers have confirmed their participation. There will be medals for the ranking round for junior/senior, men/women, as well as, gold, silver and bronze medals for the elimination round where teams of all age groups will shoot against each other. WINDHOEK-SPORT REPORTER