We held our 2nd Open WA720 Tournament on 13th July at Towcestrians Sports Club. This year, for the first time, the event was granted UK Record Status. A UK Record Status competition is one formally registered and approved by Archery GB to meet national standards. This means scores are officially recognised for UK record claims and can count towards archers’ classifications and handicaps. To qualify, tournaments must be run under stricter rules, with qualified judges present, proper timing and scoring systems in place, and the field laid out according to Archery GB regulations. For archers, the benefit is that their scores “count” nationally, whether for records, rankings, or classifications.
The day offered a full range of WA720 rounds, with Single and Double WA70, WA60, WA50 and WA50m (122), as well as Single and Double Metric 122-50, 122-40, 122-30 and Metric 80-40, 80-30. The event ran very smoothly, thanks to the huge amount of work put in beforehand, particularly with the targets in the weeks leading up to this and the NCAS Caswell Series Stage 2 competition. A really big thank you to David M for organising the target rebuilding sessions and ensuring all the stands were repaired or built to the correct height for UKRS tolerances. We were fortunate to have an excellent judging team on the day, Pat Kerrigan, Timothy Pilbeam, and Phyllis Griffiths, who kept the shoot running efficiently and gave us valuable advice on how to improve for the future. Competitors gave us some fantastic feedback about how smoothly everything ran and how much they enjoyed the venue, which is always brilliant to hear.
A big thank you also goes to everyone who pitched in, from setting up the field the evening before to packing away at the end. Your hard work and good spirits made the event a success. The weather also helped, although the wind proved a bit of a challenge for the archers, becoming steadily breezier as the day went on.
The best part of the day was seeing so many club members taking part. In the single rounds, Archie Longley won gold in the Barebow Men Under 14 category in the Metric 122-40 round. Edward Wooldridge-Smith claimed gold in the Recurve Men Under 15 with the Metric 122-50. In the Barebow Men 50+, Paul Scott took silver in only his second competition, with David Whitley close behind in bronze. In the Barebow Men’s category, Neil Bowden narrowly missed gold by just four points. His score of 610 would have been a new county record, but Steven Stark of Rugby Archers edged him out. Jason Mcdill also shot well finishing 4th, while Michelle George secured gold in the Barebow Women 50+. In the Recurve Men 50+, Tony Thurgood took bronze, with Adrian Snowball placing 6th in his first competition and Alex Wooldridge-Smith 7th. In the Recurve Women’s category, Lori Manton shot brilliantly to win gold with 572, while Lucy Stratton finished 5th. In the Recurve Men, Steve Boucher came 4th in only his second open competition. In the double rounds there were more medals for members: Archie (gold), David (silver), Jason (bronze), and Michelle (gold). There is already talk of applying for World Record Status for next year!
The results and more photos from the day can be found here.
