7 May 2025
The Junior Archery Series (JAS) 2025 kicked off in Gloucestershire with an incredible 109 archers taking part, aged from 9 to 20.
The first stage of the series was hosted by Deer Park Archers in Shurdington on Saturday 3 May.
Brothers Shay and Cairn Boyd of Largs Archery Club, ASKA’s Olivia Kendal and Ayr Archery Club’s Kristin Ward making up an all Ayrshire group heading from Scotland. Shay was in high spirits after being announced as part of the AGB World Class Programme and this showed in his performance. He took the Recurve U21 Men’s title with a 7-3 win in the final over Owen Smith. Brother Cairn who at 14 years old is certainly a budding star demonstrating his potential in the Compound Youth Men. He put in an impressive qualification round finishing 7th and narrowly losing out to Alfie Ridding (who finished 4th) in the head-to-head rounds.
Keeping it Compound, Olivia had a solid qualification round progressing to head-to-heads to face Harriet Beckinsale-Smith. It was a close match Olivia’s opponent clinched the win 132-124 – great effort though Olivia! Kristin kept the momentum going, finishing 4th in qualifying after scoring 500 – a great start out the blocks. She then entered into the quarter final. Despite a decent performance, her opponent Sophie Bradford edged the victory with 6-4 – well done Kirstin!
Scottish National Team Manager Ainsley Ward was in attendance along with Bill Mackay, Scottish National Head Coach. Ainsley shared his reflections from the opening JAS stage:
“The weather was a big factor today, it was beautiful first thing getting up to a sunny 20C, but then the wind picked up around half way and a few archers had a harder time. Strong gusting wind across the field throughout the head-to-heads made it feel more like shooting in Scotland. Overall a very well organised event with great facilities at Deer Park. Our archers were made to feel very welcome. Best of luck to all the archers in the next leg in York on June 14.’’
You can read the full report from Archery GB here.