Good Lords! It's just not cricket - it's archery!
An archery tournament will be held at Lord's Cricket Ground
next month for the first time in the famous venue's 220-year
history.
Lords, which is hosting the archery tournament during the
2012 Olympic Games, will host an international triangular
tournament featuring Great Britain, China and India on August
6, the day after the World Cup tournament finishes in Dover.
The event, which features both men's and women's teams, will
give the ground experience of the sport ahead of the 2012
Games, and is the start of a five year partnership between
the MCC and archery's governing body in the UK, the GNAS.
Keith Bradshaw, the MCC's secretary and chief executive, said:
"I'm delighted that we will be staging this genuinely
historic sporting contest. It will be particularly exciting
to welcome Chinese competitors to Lord's for the first time.
"It's all part of our policy of increasing public interest
in archery in the approach to 2012. We're also committed to
giving British archers every opportunity to train and compete
at Lord's in the run-up to the London Olympics, to give them
the best possible chance of going for gold in the Games themselves."
Alf Davies, of the GNAS said: "Working together, MCC
and GNAS have been developing this idea for many months. I'm
delighted that we've now got the go-ahead from each of the
three competing nations."
"I am sure it will be a great thrill for each of the
archers to take part in the first-ever archery contest at
Lord's - one of the world's greatest sporting stages,"
he added. "It will also give them invaluable experience
of competing at a ground which will host the Olympic archery
competition in five years' time."
Admission to the event will be free.
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