David Barnes of Australia and Riku Van Tonder of New Zealand have started the world Indoor series with a fantastic effort for the Oceania region, in the Macau Indoor event, last week. The two were part of 11 archers from our region (10 Aussies and 1 Kiwi) who attended the event, which was capped off with a Bronze for David in the Men’s Recurve Division.
Barnes, went one step better than last years 4th place at the same event and was able to overcome a professional Korean archer in the bronze match. This caps off a great year for the archer from Adelaide. David was a member of the AUS team that successfully earned AUS a full quota to the 2020 Olympics and has been routinely making an impact on the world cup scene. David, who took a leave of absence from the sport has come back with some great results in the past few years and juggles the life of a Professional archer, along with work and family commitments.
Van Tonder of New Zealand, who is the reigning outdoor and indoor champ of NZL, had a strong performance in the Men’s Compound Division, coming a very credible 8th place. He met Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands in the quarter finals, who during that match and for the entire event hadn’t dropped a single point at that time (Schloesser went on to only dropped 3 points from 135 scored shots).
Riku who is looking to replicate and improve on his ground breaking 3rd place in Vegas of this year, used Macau as a sounding board for his preparations for the year. Riku who began his archery as an avid hunter, trains in his family home in Hamilton NZL and like Barnes juggles a busy career, family and professional sporting life.
Both archers are also set to compete in the upcoming Sydney Indoor World Series event, along with a range of regional talent as well as international stars. The Sydney event, and all Indoor World Series events, are open to all comers. So if you are a serious shooter or just enjoy the sport we encourage you to attend the Sydney event where you might catch a glimpse or get to shoot next to David or Riku.
Well done to all who represented our region at the event so well and we congratulate Riku and David for such great results.
Entry information for Sydney and other Indoor World Series events be sure to visit here to enter.
David Barnes finished with Bronze in the Tough event.