"Kyle Douglas, 17, of Harrisville, practices target archery with his compound bow at the indoor...
FARR WEST -- For three days Kyle Douglas' arrows pretty much all hit a two-inch spot dead center on target, earning him the Young Adult Championship at the World Festival of Archery.
“It's not a world title, but it was a world tournament,” said the modest 17-year-old from Farr West, he a member of the Brigham Bowmen archery club in Box Elder County.
“These are truly the best in the world,” countered Corey Barton, Brigham Bowmen president, in lauding Douglas for his performance in the tourney in Las Vegas earlier this month.
More than 2,600 archers, Barton said, competed from as far away as Europe and Japan. “It's the largest and most prestigious indoor archery tournament in the world,” he said, with a purse of $275,000.
Over the three days of shooting, Douglas' 93 arrows hit the 10-ring 90 times, the three misses hitting the 9 -ring. Inside the 10-ring is the bulls-eye, these days called the X-ring. Hitting the X-ring awards the same points as the 10-ring: 10, as the bowmen explained it. Hits on the X-ring are only recorded to break a tie.
Douglas’ first day target shows his perfection, all 30 shots hitting the 10-ring -- the X-ring is obliterated, gone, just a hole in the target.
His first day shooting drew a perfect score, a miss coming the second day, two on the last day. He was among 57 competitors in the 15-17-year-old age group of the young adult freestyle competition at the Feb. 6-8 Vegas tourney.
On the third day a competitor caught up with him, tying his score. So they had a 3-arrow "shoot-off": 10-rings all the way for Douglas, to outdistance the runner up.
Douglas got his first compound bow when he was five years old, and has been shooting with father Shawn ever since. “My Dad's always shot as long as I can remember.”
Kyle's practice regimen sounds grueling. “I try to shoot daily,” he said. That's a minimum of two hours, usually three or four, either in his back yard or at the Brigham Bowmen's indoor range at Brigham City's Pioneer Park in the winter.
Typically, he practices five days a week. In the past year getting ready for the Vegas tourney, it's been daily, he said. Practice sessions are shorter in the winter, with drive time to Brigham.
But in the summer he'll put in as much as four hours a day. “Until I'm too tired to pull the bow back.”
He plans to move up to the adult men's amateur category next year at the Vegas meet, put on by the National Field Archery Association in Yankton, South Dakota.
Kyle this time won $3,500. The top prize went to the men's adult freestyle championship winner: $30,000.
He's old enough but feels sure he's not ready for that group, even though all the archers shoot the same distance -- the range of 20 yards, and the scoring is the same.
A total of 262 bowmen competed in the mens' championship tier at the Vegas world meet. Seventeen of them finished with perfect scores, Douglas said, necessitating four or five rounds of shoot-offs to crown the champ.
“It's people who shoot for a living,” he said. “The winner never missed the X-ring.”
“It's not a world title, but it was a world tournament,” said the modest 17-year-old from Farr West, he a member of the Brigham Bowmen archery club in Box Elder County.
“These are truly the best in the world,” countered Corey Barton, Brigham Bowmen president, in lauding Douglas for his performance in the tourney in Las Vegas earlier this month.
More than 2,600 archers, Barton said, competed from as far away as Europe and Japan. “It's the largest and most prestigious indoor archery tournament in the world,” he said, with a purse of $275,000.
Douglas’ first day target shows his perfection, all 30 shots hitting the 10-ring -- the X-ring is obliterated, gone, just a hole in the target.
His first day shooting drew a perfect score, a miss coming the second day, two on the last day. He was among 57 competitors in the 15-17-year-old age group of the young adult freestyle competition at the Feb. 6-8 Vegas tourney.
On the third day a competitor caught up with him, tying his score. So they had a 3-arrow "shoot-off": 10-rings all the way for Douglas, to outdistance the runner up.
Kyle's practice regimen sounds grueling. “I try to shoot daily,” he said. That's a minimum of two hours, usually three or four, either in his back yard or at the Brigham Bowmen's indoor range at Brigham City's Pioneer Park in the winter.
Typically, he practices five days a week. In the past year getting ready for the Vegas tourney, it's been daily, he said. Practice sessions are shorter in the winter, with drive time to Brigham.
But in the summer he'll put in as much as four hours a day. “Until I'm too tired to pull the bow back.”
He plans to move up to the adult men's amateur category next year at the Vegas meet, put on by the National Field Archery Association in Yankton, South Dakota.
Kyle this time won $3,500. The top prize went to the men's adult freestyle championship winner: $30,000.
He's old enough but feels sure he's not ready for that group, even though all the archers shoot the same distance -- the range of 20 yards, and the scoring is the same.
A total of 262 bowmen competed in the mens' championship tier at the Vegas world meet. Seventeen of them finished with perfect scores, Douglas said, necessitating four or five rounds of shoot-offs to crown the champ.
“It's people who shoot for a living,” he said. “The winner never missed the X-ring.”
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