20 May 2025
At the weekend, Scottish archers once again travelled down to south to compete in the second stage of the Archery GBÂ National Tour this time hosted at Woking Archery Club.
Shay Boyd (Largs Archery Club) and Joshua Phillips (Links Archers) lead the charge in the Recurve Men’s category. Both progressed through to knockout stage. After battling his way through Shay reached the last 16 stage losing out to Olympian Tom Hall 6-2, with some close scores throughout. Similarly Joshua put in an impressive set of performances, including 6-4 win in previous round, reaching the last 32.
In the women’s recurve, St Andrews University A.C’s Kelsey Hunt competed in her first ever National Tour stage which sounds like an enjoyable experience with lots of learning and takeaways. Kelsey shared her experience of the event (great effort Kelsey):
‘‘Okay, I finally went to my first ever National Tour Stage! Did it go the way I wanted, nope. But did I learn more about shooting in the wind, dealing with pressure and equipment failures? Yes!Qualification was not my strong suit, I had some really good ends where I’ve been starting to see greater consistent grouping at 70m, and some ends got swept in the wind changing and dropping off.
I learnt a lot about being at bigger competitions, especially where I don’t have my usual people I know around me.
H2hs I was shooting a lot better, after a windy first set and my kisser button flying off, the next two my arrows were comfortably within the red and golds (but the wonderful archer I was matched against shot better, so I didn’t make it to the next match, but next time!). My under pressure shooting has gotten a lot better recently, so I’m feeling very proud of that.’’
Meanwhile, it was a podium place finish for Sarah Prieels of Edinburgh University Archery Club who took Silver in the Women’s Compound. It was a fantastic performance by Sarah who progressed all the way through head to heads to face world number one Ella Gibson. Ella edged the win 146-141 in the final – superb performance from Sarah, well done!
In the Men’s Compound, East Kilbride Archery Club’s James Ross made the trip again down to Woking. He reflected on the day:
‘‘Glorious weather again at AGB Tour Stage 2, made the 6 and a half hour drive down and back from Woking very pleasant. My shooting was a bit up and down again, 324 in the first half with a couple of 6s right out the bat meaning I had a lot of work to do in the second half. I refocused and managed a 331 in the second for a 655 total. Still a bit of work to do for the rest of the season. Head to Head was a close match losing out by just 4 points 142 vs 138. All in all a fun weekend!’’
Hard luck James, not much between the scores in the last match – great effort!
Great effort from all archers travelling from Scotland. We would like to take this opportunity to wish all the archers best of luck who are competing this weekend at our Scottish Tour Stage 1 in Banchory.
For full results from AGB National Tour Stage 2, available here.
*Photo Credits: Bimble | Flickr