Firstly, sorry for the lateness with regards to this blog posting. Work pressures are mounting, especially as people are starting to book me for photo shoots and this is looking like increasing over the coming months.
Anyway, the 5th and 6th July saw several of our Juniors up at Lilleshaw for this years Junior Outdoor Championships. Lauren and I were unable to make the trip this year, but travelling up from AoR were Katie Bayliss, Ruby Paul, Amber Wilkins and Imogen Neville. Katie and Lauren always saw Daniel Nixon from Targetcraft as one of the team, and he was there shooting as well.
The weather looks to have been good for both days and the photographs of the range looked as awesome as when Lauren shot it last year. The official results card shows the weather as a damp start on Saturday following by bright sunshine and a light breeze and Sunday was just bright sunshine and a light breeze, so ideal conditions. Saturday’s shoot was a UK Record Status Metrics tournament and Sunday was a tournament consisting of a UK Record Status York, Hereford and Bristol rounds.
Saturday Rounds:
Daniel is the first to appear in the results tables. Shooting a Metric One for the Gents Recurve, he posted a score of 1027 with 14 golds of which 3 were X’s. This great score achieved him 11th place in a category of 17.
Next in the results tables is Katie Bayliss. Shooting in a field of 19 archers she looks to have had a brilliant day shooting the Metric 2 Ladies Recurve taking 4th place overall with 1121 scored and 11 golds with 5 X’s.
In the same category (Ladies Metric 2) Amber Wilkins shot a fine 877 with 12 golds and 4 x’s to take 14th place, despite admitting that this was not her best event with some issues along the way. However, this is skill a great achievement for her very first visit to the nationals which is a big event for anyone that is new to archery and their first national tournament.
Imogen was shooting the Metric 3 Ladies Recurve and in a class of 29 archers she secured a fine 15th place mid table with a brilliant 1164 which included 23 golds and 5 X’s. Again, this was Imogen’s first major national tournament and with reduced practice owing to exams recently, she has not lost any of her skill and ability.
Sunday Rounds
First in the result tables for the Bristol rounds on the Sunday is Ruby Paul. Ruby is another relatively new archer and this was her first major tournament, with only a handful of small tournaments around Northamptonshire under her belt over the last couple of months. There were 24 archers in her category and she secured a fine 12th place with a wonderful 1174 with 90 golds secured during the day. I believe that this was also a new personal best for young Ruby.
Imogen also shot on the Sunday along with 27 archers shooting the Bristol 3 Ladies Recurve. She shot another solid round to post a 1096 with 71 golds and secured 16th place overall.
The Ladies Recurve Bristol 2 round consisted of 23 archers with both Katie and Amber shooting. Katie secured a fine 6th place wit ha score of 1062 and 57 golds and Amber put in another solid performance to secure 14th place with a score of 948 and 41 golds.
Not forgetting Daniel, he shot in the Gents Bristol 1 and secured 10th position out of 19 archers with a fine 1004 and 46 golds. Another great mid table result in a very tough round.
NCAS took 3rd place in the regional standings on the Saturday and 4th place on the Sunday. Ruby Paul’s fine first outing performance saw her make the County Mixed Recurve Team and taking second slot in the team rankings just 20 points behind Finlay Lancashire. there were 28 counties represented on the Sunday.
Well done to all of our Junior Ladies who entered the Junior Outdoor Nationals this year. It was a great performance by all of you and I look forward to seeing how you all perform without the nerves of a first major tournament. Now we just need the lads to step up and show the ladies what they can do on the national stage.