Heather Leduc has been working hard at the sport of archery since taking it up four years ago and that work paid off last weekend.

The local archer collected a gold medal in ladies barebow and was the female tradition Grand Prix winner at the 2018 Canadian 3D Archery Indoor Championship in Sundre, Alba.

"It was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work that finally paid off," said Leduc after the championship. "We had a great time there and had a very good showing by our club."

In addition to Leduc's exploits, the Thunder Creek Archery Club had a strong showing with two more top-five finishes at nationals. Tyler Moore picked up a silver medal in men's barebow, while Chris Paulhaus was fifth in men's longbow.

Leduc said she shot consistently throughout the two days at nationals, but really put everything together on the final.

"On Sunday, everything just really clicked," she said. "I started out with three really good targets, felt good and knew things were going to end up in a really great way and I finished strong and there was the gold."

Leduc finished with a score of 175 to win the barebow category and then her sharp shooting paid off in the Grand Prix where she was the last one standing.

In the Grand Prix, all of the shooters from the different traditional disciplines (barebow, longbow, recurve and master instinctive) shoot and the furthest from the bullseye is eliminated until just one archer remains.

Leduc said it was nerve-racking, "There's a ton of people watching and they were filming it, so it was kind of terrifying," she said.

This wasn't the first gold medal performance for Leduc at nationals as she took top prize with a longbow last year, but decided to give barebow a try this year.

"Barebow is a little different type of a tradition bow, its a metal riser with carbon or composite limbs, but you still shoot it without any sight," said Leduc.

"Because of my background with the longbow, it translate very well and I had a couple of really good coaches that helped me get it figured out. I started shooting it at the end of February this year and was successful last weekend with it, so onward and upward from here."

Leduc is now looking to find the same success that she had at indoor nationals when they head outdoors in August.

"Lots of hard work ahead, lots of outdoor shoots to go to, pretty much one every weekend, so I'm going to get to as many as I can, get brushed up and hit hard in Trail, B.C. in August," she said.