Competition Review - August 2024

August was a jam-packed month full of competitions.  This included the Bannockburn Bowmen Open Competition and Scottish Tour Stage 4 hosted by Aberdeen University Archery Club.  We also had archers travel down to the ArcheryGB 50+ Championships, British Target Championships, Home Nations Cup where our Scotland Team did us proud, the 5th stage & Grand Final of Junior Archery Series took place and rounded with a fantastic day at the 2024 Perth & Kinross Outdoor Disability Archery Championships.

2024 ArcheryGB 50+ Championships

Evesham played host to the 118 archers competing in this year’s ArcheryGB 50+ Championships.  Evesham’s wind visited the archers during the event making it tricky at times, but the sun did finally come out and the head-to-heads were shot in some very warm conditions. Almost 120 archers competed, shooting four bowstyles: barebow, compound, longbow and recurve.

It was a score of 612 for Alastair Shields Compound Men 50+ Qualification round.  In head to heads, despite beating Graham Potts – 120-107 and progressing to the quarter finals, Alaistair was narrowly beaten by Colin Williams 139-135.

‘‘Attended the 50+ championships again this year. Always a fun competition with lots of laughs with friends. It was a really warm day but windy. Wasn’t too happy with qualifying and my 1st H2H was awful but it was for both of us. I picked up for the 2nd h2h and although it wasn’t to be I was happy with the way I shot against the 2nd seed. As always a great competition organised by eavsham archery club.’’

Maree Shields competed in the Compound Women 50+ shot 532 in Qualifications and was unlucky not to progress in head to heads losing 119-134 to Rhona Halliday-Noden.

It was an impressive set of performances from Frank Hynds in the Recurve Men 50+ which started with a 606 in Qualification.  In head to heads Frank went on to win against Laurence Easton 6-0, David Ellis 6-2 and then holding his nerve to scoring a 10 in the shoot off winning 6-5 against Nigel Lyon.  He then faced Kevin Barrett in the semi-final however lost 7-1 despite close scores throughout.

A well done to Alastair, Maree and Frank.  You can read the full round up from the event here.

2024 British Target Championships

At the 2024 British Target Championships, archers had a weekend of sunshine at Lilleshall for the biggest ever UK outdoor competition, comprising of 363 participants shooting across 102 bosses on two full fields. Archery GB would like to express our immense gratitude to all of the volunteers and judges who helped make this event happen.

Well done to all the archers who competed which included 20 archers from Scotland and a special congratulations to Edinburgh University Archery Club’s Natasha Homer who took home Silver and Bronze over the weekend in the Recurve Women category. 

Natasha commented on her success and shared her thoughts heading into the finals:

‘‘Really happy with my performance at the British champs, it’s the best I’ve ever performed at this event and has also moved me into second place in the UK rolling rankings which I’m really proud of. The conditions were a little tricky so it was nice to know that years of training in Scottish weather have paid off too! I’m excited to get to work with preparing for the tour finals, it’ll be my first time on an individual finals field so whatever happens it’ll be a great learning experience, and it’s so cool to be up against some of the best in the world’’

You can read the full round up from the event here.

Home Nations

In conjunction with the other Home Nations, it was decided that there would be something different with this year’s competition, replacing the side show at British Target Championships with a standalone, main attraction competition hosted this year by New Century Bowmen in Macclesfield. The rationale for a standalone Home Nations was simple in that we were able to select from a full pool of archers for each nation rather than from the pool that had secured a place at BTC. This positive choice paid dividends with the selection process being well over-subscribed for Scotland. 

Big thanks to Ainsley Ward (Team Manager), Richard Radigan (Team Coach) and Scott Kendal (Team Photographer).

Read the full report from Ainsley here.

Bannockburn Bowmen

On the same weekend as the Home Nations Cup, Bannockburn Bowmen hosted Scottish Record Status events with a St George, Albion & Windsor rounds on the Saturday and the Sunday was WA1440m.  The weather was varied however most importantly it was dry on both days.  Adding to this, there were also many awards claimed.

You can view the results from both days here:

·        Saturday 17th August - Bannockburn Bowmen Open St George, Albion and Windsors (Scottish Record Status)

·        Sunday 18th August - Bannockburn Bowmen Open WA1440m and Metrics (Scottish Record Status)

Thank you to organiser Judith Forbes from Bannockburn Bowmen and to the judging team of Frank Schallmoser, Pauline Gallagher and Andrew Graham.

JAS Stage 5

With the Home Nations Cup and various other events on the same weekend meant that there was not a large entry for Scottish archers at the Archery GB Junior Archery Series (JAS) Stage 5 hosted by Wallingford Castle Archers. However,  Scottish U21 Pathway Academy athlete Zac Ibrahim was in attendance, shooting in the Men’s U18 Recurve category.  Zac finished 8th in the qualification round with a score of 597.  In the head to heads he come against local Samuel Bell of Wallingford Castle Archers.  Despite the scores being neck & neck, Bell took the match 6-2.  Nonetheless overall a great effort and performance by Zac. 

Read full round up here of the event.

We would like to wish all the Scottish archers the best of luck heading into the JAS Grand Final on 31st August at Meriden Archery Club.

Scottish Tour Stage 4

Aberdeen University Archery Club (AUAC) this weekend played host to the fourth stage of the Scottish Tour supported by the Northern Area. The event took place at the King's Pavilion which is situated on the University of Aberdeen Campus, attractive playing fields which has two rugby pitches, Aberdeen's only dedicated lacrosse pitch and a recently replaced synthetic cricket wicket.

Well done everyone who competed in Stage 4 of the Scottish Tour and thanks to Aberdeen University Archery Club and their team of volunteers who made the weekend a great success.

Read Michal's Report here.

Perth & Kinross Outdoor Disability Archery Championships

It was a  fantastic day at the Perth & Kinross Disability Sport Archery Championships where archers were from across Scotland to Gannochy Sports Pavilion with Perth Archery Club, Scottish Disability Sport and Scottish Archery.

Read full round up here.

ArcheryGB Junior Archery Series Grand Final

Well done to all the U21 archers who competed in the ArcheryGB Junior Archery Series

(JAS) Grand Final hosted by Meriden Archery Club. Great performances all round for the Scottish archers and special mention to Finlay Clark who took silver - well done Finlay:

''Saturday was the Junior Archery Series (JAS) final at Meriden, weather was tricky and I placed second after qualification with 679. I won H2H matches against Adam 144 & Alfie 143 then lost in the final to Tom 144-142. It was great to see all my archery friend again!  So I finished the series in second place''

Read the full round up here.

Please note that invites will be out soon for the Scottish Tour Stage Finals on 14th September.

Best of luck to Edinburgh University Archery Club's Natasha Homer (Women's Recurve) and Jake Walsh (Men's Compound) who will be competing at the 2024 AGB National Tour: The Final this weekend at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham.

Coming into September & October, there are some more competitions taking place:

·        7th & 8th September – 2024 AGB National Tour: The Final

·        14th & 15th September - Falkirk Company of Archers SRS Competitions

·        14th & 15th September – 2024 AGB Disability Championships

·        28th September – 2024 AGB National County Team Championships

·        19th October – 2024 AGB National Clout Championships and Tassel Award National Championships

You can enter or find out more information on what competitions are coming up below as well as view any past results by visiting our Events Calendar on the website, by clicking here.