By Amelia Harper
Guest writer Luca Wright competed in the British Universities and College Sport (BUCS) National Championships. We asked him to tell us more about how he started the sport and what the competition was like!
Archery – that sport that when mentioned, most peoples minds immediately drift to Robin Hood.
However; what most people don’t realise is that not only is it a sport, an Olympic one at that, but a
very enjoyable pass time for people of ages and a great way to meet people!
About me!
I have been shooting for around 7 years, the past 4 have been at both regional and national level events. I have over 20 podium finishes to my name, including several at regional level events (narrowly missing out on national podiums with two 4th place finishes at the Junior National Championships) and hold a handful of club records, and one (although unverified) county record.
How did I start archery?
Like most of you, when I was little I had a toy bow and arrow. As I grew, the bow grew with me! By the time I was around 10, I was going down to the woods and whittling a rudimentary bow and arrows (with real feather fletches!) out of some wood.
I decided I wanted to try archery for real, and when I saw it as an after school activity I leapt at the chance! From there, I moved to a local club, with whom I still shoot whenever I am at home. A year later I met my coach – he completely re-worked my technique, and despite a slow few years, it really paid off! I often use that as an example when I see people struggling with a technique change. Since then I have been constantly improving and adapting my technique, and competing!
BUCS National Championships
This past weekend I shot at BUCS finals, where I came joint 33rd. The way some archery competitions work (including the olympics) is fairly straight forward. You shoot a qualification round - for outdoors this is usually 72 arrows at 70m on a 122cm target face (the 10 ring is about the size of a large apple, and indoors it is 60 arrows at 18m on a triple 40cm target face (the 10 ring is about an inch in diameter).
Once everyone is ranked, the top 32 or 64 (depending on the competition) go through into match play – this is the bit that you see on TV at the olympics. You go head to head (hence the other name for match play is Head to Head or Back to Back) with one other archer that ranked opposite to you. You shoot 3 arrows at a time, and the scores are added up. You get 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 if you loose.
At first this can be tricky to get your head around, so here’s an example, as told to me when I first started. Billy and Frank both enter a competition. Billy ranks 2nd in the qualifiers, and frank ranks 63rd out of 64. This means that they have to go head to head. In the first end (set of 3), Billy shoots a 29, but Frank shoots a 25 – Billy gets 2 points, Frank gets 0. This continues until one of the 2 archers reaches 6 points. If they are at 5 all, then it goes down to a shoot off. This is one arrow each, closest to the middle wins!
This level of competition only happens at a certain level though, and it will usually take at least a year of hard work to get to the stage where you can be competitive in regional events – usually more.
Components of the sport
Just like all sports, archery can be broken down into 2 aspects. Physical and mental.
The physical is the subdivided to technique and strength. The technique aspect, is probably the hardest to master – the only way to improve is to work closely with a coach or equally experienced archer, who can point you in the right direction. A Good coach can also help you with the mental side of things.
The strength side of things can be very complex to get correct, but if you are a budding archer out there, looking to increase what is known as bow fitness, then a good start is press-ups maintaining correct form, tricep dips and any forms of core work.
As the name of this page suggests, in it’s simplest form archery is a stupidly simple sport – use a bow to shoot an arrow into the middle of the target!
Hopefully this brief introduction to archery has explained how it works, and wetted your appetite to give it a go!
Head over to https://www.archerygb.org/clubs-facilities-development/clubs/find-a-club/ to find your nearest club.
If you’re interested in buying your own set up, please head over to The Archery Shop (https://thearcheryshop.co.uk).