KIDDERMINSTER’S three-time Olympian Naomi Folkard hit gold in the World Games in Colombia as she won the ladies recurve field archery competition.

The Games are for sports, such as field archery, which are not included in the Olympics.

Field archery involves shooting over rough terrain, often steep and wooded, at targets of different sizes, over both unmarked and marked distances.

The competition in Cali involved three arrows at each of 24 targets at unmarked distances on day one, with a similar round over marked distances on the second day.

The scores from both rounds were added together and the top four archers went into head-to-head matches of 12 arrows over four targets.

Folkard scored consistently well with 359 for the unmarked and 339 for the marked, putting her in second place with a combined total of 698.

This ensured her place in the finals matches, together with long time rivals Elena Richter (Germany) 703, Jessica Tomasi (Italy) 691 and Lisa Unruh (Germany) 683. The Wyre Forest ace made an excellent start in her semi-final match against Tomasi, taking a five-point lead.

Tomasi was not able to pull this back and Folkard won the match 52-50.

Meanwhile, Richter beat her teammate Unruh 49-47 to set up the gold match versus Folkard.

The battle for gold was tense with Richter taking a single point lead, 14-13, at the first target.

But Folkard pulled back at the second, and they then remained on level pegging to the end.

The match was therefore decided on a nail-biting single arrow shoot-off. Both ladies shot a gold, but Folkard’s was nearer the middle of the target.

She said: “In the past I have won silver and bronze medals at field events, and I am now over the moon to win gold on the world field stage.”