GA’s Finest

At the Ayrshire Athletics Arena in Kilmarnock on the 26-28 Aug 2022, the Commonwealth Archery Championships Europe 2022 were hosted by Scottish Archery (SAA). This is a sort of home nations competition with teams from Wales, Northern Ireland, England and of course us Scots all competing.
Over two days of competition, compounders, recurvers and barebow archers battled it out for medals in both individual and team events. Significantly for Glasgow Archers, two of the Scottish team competing were folks you might recognize from our line. Oksana and Scott.

Highlights from the weekend:

Oksana’s “Thistles”, including Natasha Homer and Rebecca Leigh, put up a hell of a fight against the higher ranked “England Blue” team in the Ladies Team quarter finals. Initially dropping the first set 47-50, the Scots ladies blasted back 48-44 to tie the match 2-2. The next end saw our girls suffer a wobble of nerves dropping the next set 37-46. Do or die time saw the Scots bang in 44-40 to tie up the match 4-4 and force a final end. They matched the English arrow for arrow in a nail biter of an end before coming up just short losing the match 5-4.

Scott’s “Saltire” team had it rough from the start. Facing the higher ranked “England Blue” team in the quarter finals, they outtraded the Englanders 220-214. Moving on to the top ranked “England Red” in the Semi’s was a lesson in what could have been. The boys in blue jumped out to a 2 point lead only to lose it then see the match slip away a point at a time 221-224. Disappointing but this set up the Bronze medal match with the second ranked “Wales Green” so time to dig deep. Starting out slowly, the guys were 3 points behind after the first end. But as we’ve always said on this website, compound is decided by those tiny lapses in concentration and when the Welsh shot a brutal 42 to Scotland’s 55, it was almost a done deal! Staying strong and focused, the guys extended their lead another 2 points to close the deal and take the Bronze medal 217-205.

Congratulations to both archers for making the Scottish squad for the event and double to Scott (even if he is a compounder ;o) for taking a medal. Sunday at the field, we all raised a tiger roll and sausage to you both.

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Results of the competition on the IANSEO online scoring page for the competition.

Rather stop start video of the finals can be seen on AGB’s Youtube channel