Annaleigh Carter has continued her meteoric rise in archery, capturing two titles at the Youth National Archery Championships in Morwell, Victoria this month.
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The Merewether 17-year-old, who took up archery after being forced to abandon a promising figure skating career two-and-a-half years ago due to a chronic back ailment, secured gold medals in the clout and team matchplay.
Until last year she had been unable to compete in the archery event of clout due to back pain. Clout requires shooting at a target 145 metres away and requires arching backwards and shooting into the air at a sharp, upwards angle.
But on the first day of the championships, held from April 8 to 13, she came from behind in “tricky conditions” to claim the Australian title in that event.
“I had a form of surgery last year and have been essentially pain-free since about September,” Carter said. “It’s been really amazing … clout and field are so infinitely much easier now my back is good.
“The ground was really hard so a lot of people got really frustrated by that. With 12 arrows to go I was about 22 points behind first place and I ended up winning by two.”
Carter, who is in year 12 and “wasn’t really shooting much” in the lead-up to the national titles, described her effort in winning clout as “a very surprising turnaround”.
“I didn’t actually know what my score was but when I went to pick up my arrows I noticed I didn’t have any misses, so I knew I was scoring well but I didn’t know how well,” she said.
Carter then came fourth in field archery and fifth in target before combining with two others to win the team matchplay.