National Matchplay Series Final

Sunshine Coast archers Ryan Tyack and Semra Lingard have had the perfect warm up for this month’s first Archery World Cup by winning the Australian recurve matchplay finals in Adelaide. Tyack, the 2014 World Indoor Champion, beat two-time Olympian Matt Gray at Victoria Square in Adelaide, while Lingard had a strong win over fellow Queenslander, Ingrid Brookshaw. “Going into a World Cup, it’s good to know you’re shooting well,” Tyack said. “Some of my shots could have been better, but in the end I was feeling pretty good. “This is a great event in Australia. We need more of these sorts of competitions so we can prepare for International events.” Like Tyack, Lingard has been the dominant archer in Australia over the summer and felt confident going into today that she had done the work to win gold. “I’ve been working on my timing for the past couple of weeks, so it really paid off today in the gold medal match,” she said. “When I’m nervous my timing goes out the window. This was a good opportunity to get some of the jitters out of my system before Shanghai later this month. “I haven’t shot in an event like this before, so it was a great experience for me.” In the compound finals there were hometown wins for Pat Coghlan in the men’s competition, and Sherry Gale in the women’s. Coghlan beat South Queenslander, Scott Brice, for the gold, while Gale proved too strong for Tasmania’s Jill Fenner. The Australian team competes in Shanghai, China starting Wednesday at the first World Cup of 2015.