Competition Review - March 2024

Photo Credits: Jonathon Yau

The month of March proved to be another action packed period of competition.  This was kicked off with the 2024 Scottish Student Sport (SSS) Individual Championships which is regarded as one of the flagship events in the student calendar taking place on 2nd March.  University of St Andrews again played host to this prestigious event.  Students from across ten university clubs took part: Abertay, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee, Heriot Watt, Napier, St Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde and UWS.  There were some fantastic scores and the tightest of margins separating the competitors.  In the team events, it was Dundee University Archery Club (DUAC) team of Alex Lai, Misha Pavlov, Racheal Chin and Jack Stockton who clinched the Senior Team title with a score of 2016. 

In the Compound Team event, Edinburgh University Archery Club duo of Jake Walsh and Gordon Bratt took Gold with a combined score of 1139.  It was an impressive victory for Heriot Watt University Archery Club team of Krzysztof Bladocha, Angus Huston and Thea Frost securing first place in the Novice Team event with a score of 1327.  Well done to the Scottish Student Archery Development Group volunteers for delivering another great event.  For full results from the event, click here.

There was some fantastic achievements for Scottish student archers at the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Archery Finals. There were students competing from Dundee, Edinburgh, St Andrews (UoSTA), Strathclyde and UWS. The event took place at the University of Warwick Sports & Wellness Hub in Coventry.  University of Edinburgh Archery Club (UoEAC) after a series of excellent performances topped the medals table with 6 medals – 2x Golds, 1x Silver, 1x Bronze in the Individual Events and 2x Golds in the Team Events.  Natasha Homer of UoEAC took home the Gold in the Recurve Women category with a superb 7-1 win in the Gold Medal Match against number 1 seed Bristol’s Roison Mooney. 

In the Men’s Compound UoEAC’s Jake Walsh won Gold in a tense battle with number 1 seed Nottingham’s Sam Cartwright – with only 2 points separating them!  In the same category, UoEAC added a Bronze to their medal tally with XiangKun Kong overcoming opponent from Nottingham Max Harding.  In the Compound Women, UoSTA’s Josephine Stewart won Gold winning 143-142 against second seed Chloe A’Bear from Gloucestershire, bringing St Andrews into 5th on the overall Medals Table.  The margins on both occasions were only 1 point and demonstrates the high standard of shooting throughout the event.  UoEAC’s Ben Moore secured Silver with an impressive performance against Jago Elliot, number 2 seed from Nottingham edging it to claim a 6-4 victory. 

In the Team Events, UoEAC rounded off what was a successful event for the university by winning two of the team events.  Homer teamed up with Grace Goh and Aleksandra Piperkova to win the Women’s Non Compound Team event with a Team Total Score of 1618.  This was followed by a Walsh and Kong partnership in the Compound Team event winning Gold – with Walsh repeating his consistent form from the individual event.  Fantastic achievement for the individual archers and for UoEAC and UoSTA archery clubs – congratulations and well done to all the Scottish student archers who competed!   

On the 10th March, the Northern Area Indoor Championships took place at the Deveron Community and Sports Centre which is a UK record status event.  There were many great performances on display.  It was neck and neck between Moray Archery Club (MAC) teammates Andrew Kelly and Keith Whittaker in the Compound 50+ Male category with Kelly narrowly beating Whittaker with a score of 509.  There were some impressive performances from junior archers including Anas Naanaa (Aberdeen University Archery Club), Euan McKell (MAC), Daniel McManus (MAC), Connie Clinch (Forres Archers), Tyler West and Chloe Chaffe (Links Junior Archers).  You can view the full results here.    

Following on soon after, was the 2024 Scottish National Indoor Weekend took place which welcomed archers from across the country to the Ally McCoist Complex on 16th & 17th March.  You can view the full event report here

SSS Head to Heads (H2H) returned on 23rd March which is a much-loved Indoor H2H event part of the student competition calendar taking place at Strathclyde Sport!  Head-to-head matches are shot on a Portsmouth / 60 cm face and will follow the points system used in recurve H2H competitions.  Well done to all the competitors who took part, results should be available soon. Coming into April, Aberdeen University Archery Club will host a SRS combined WA25/18m In the middle of April. Peffermill will once again host the prestigious SSS Outdoor Championships and Outdoor Head to Head.  This year both events will also be held under Scottish Record Status For more info, click here

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

We would like to take this opportunity to once again thank our tournament organisers for their organisation, coordination and hard work behind the scenes to make it all happen.