Despite struggling with her performance, Halstead archery ace Imogen Newby overcame shoulder problems to wrap up another title and added a fresh Essex record to her growing list of achievements.

After a tough day, she showed her resolve to come away from the World Record Status Kent Archery Association County Championships in Meopham as the Kent Junior Ladies Metric IV champion.

The Hedingham School pupil, who was a joint winner of the Young Sports Personality of the Year award in the Active Braintree Sports Awards last year and highly commended in the Essex awards was shooting a Metric IV round.

That featured 144 arrows over 40 metres, 30m, 20m and 10m and was one age group up from her current level.

Newby started well, scoring 102, 107 and 104 out of 120 for the first three ends, but although her scores did not reflect any issues, she was not happy with her shooting.

The 12-year-old was engaging the wrong muscle in her shoulder to pull the arrow, which as a result was making the release more difficult and, as her shoulder started to play up, she struggled to get control back.

Scores remained constant, but as the wind picked up in the middle part of the day and shooting distances came down, Newby’s shoulder became increasingly problematic.

She said: “I was becoming more and more frustrated with myself, such is my passion to be a perfectionist and keep all my shots exactly the same.

“By then my shoulder was really starting to hurt but I soldiered on.

“Nothing improved, though, and in fact it got worse, so much so that I missed at ten metres and scored a five.

“I was very upset as I knew what I was doing wrong and was struggling to correct it.

“It was a bad day in terms of my personal performance but I did smash the Essex County record by 43 points and also beat the Kent record but I can’t claim that as an Essex archer.”