Archer Steve's on target for award

It's like a scene from a film as Steve Prowse adjusts his blindfold and confidently picks up his bow and arrow, writes Cathy Spencer.

You could hear a pin drop as the 400 onlookers silently watch him release his final arrow.

Then suddenly the crowd erupts as it is embedded in the yellow bullseye and Steve is told that he is a world champion.

"The competition was in Korea and even after 29 hours of travelling back home I was still buzzing," says Steve, aged 49, who is registered blind. "It didn't sink in for a while and it was only when I got back to work that I started to realise what had just happened."

Steve, of Wordsley near Stourbridge, represented Great Britain in the 2007 International Paralympic Committee Archery World Championships in South Korea. Now the Wolverhampton University lecturer has been nominated for the Duncan Edwards Award for Sport in the Dudley Civic Awards.

"I still have some vision and it is as though I am seeing things through a pinhole," says Steve. "The rules for competitive archery keep on changing and so you have to be able to adapt your play. They only went to the black-out round four years ago, where you have to wear a blindfold."

Steve won with 972 points in the visually-impaired category – 113 points ahead of second place. His spotter – who tells him the score and lets him know where he has hit the target and how to move to correct himself – is his partner Lesley Gwilliam.

Lesley was more nervous than Steve. "I was terrified," she says. "When Steve won I had to retrieve his arrows from the target. I was crying so much I couldn't get the arrows out and the judge had to help me."