Youth Festival 2024: Day 1

By Victoria Otterson

Youth Festival 2024 began with team captain, Kristin, leading the team in their first warm-up of the week. Our team photographer, Scott, also took the first team photo of the 2024 Scotland Youth Festival team.

This Youth Festival has seen the Scotland U21 Squad welcome three new members. A very warm welcome was given to Caitlin Orr, Ellis White and William Anderson. Kitty and Ellis adding to our Junior Compound team and Will shooting Barebow.

The morning saw our athletes complete the qualification round. After a shocking summer back home, the archers were happy to find themselves shooting in some lovely sunny weather. In the Recurve U21 Men’s category, Joshua, Shay and Luke placed 3rd, 7th and 10th respectively.

Within the Recurve U21 Women’s category, Hannah Wells placed 17t.  Zac Ibrahim placed 5th in the Recurve U18 Men’s category and Kristin Ward placed 11th in the Recurve U18 Women’s category with a new PB of 540! In the Barebow Youth Men’s category, William Anderson placed 2nd at his first Youth Festival with a Master Bowman score of 538. Our Compound Youth Men’s archers, Ellis White and Cairn Boyd, both shot the exact same score but Cairn scored more 10s meaning that he finished in 10th place and Ellis in 11th place.  Our Compound Youth Women’s team, consisting of Olivia Kendal, Molly Joyce and Kitty Orr, finished the qualification round in 7th, 12th and 13th place respectively. Olivia also shot a PB of 641!

The qualification round allowed us to select the Scotland Home Nations team who will shoot tomorrow evening against England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Jersey in attempt to become outdoor Home Nations Champions. The athletes representing Scotland in the Home Nations event will be:

·        Recurve U21 - Joshua Phillips & Hannah Wells

·        Recurve U18 - Zac Ibrahim & Kristin Ward

·        Compound U21 - Ellis White & Molly Joyce

·        Compound U18 - Cairn Boyd & Olivia Kendal

·        Barebow Youth - William Anderson & Kaitlyn Mason

Kaitlyn Mason has stepped up to wear the Scotland top and shoot alongside Will to allow us to have a full cohort shooting from Scotland. Kitty will be doing the same but representing Northern Ireland to allow them to have a Compound U21 team.

After the qualification round, our archers were randomly placed into teams with two other archers from their category. They then shot a round robin event in their teams, shooting matches against all of the other archers in their category.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Youth Festival without the presence of our team mascot, Fluffy!

Craig Paterson Team Manager

Victoria Otterson Assistant Team Manager

Alastair Shields Assistant Team Manager