Two days of competition on Friday 13th (Primary) & Saturday 14th (Secondary) at Hartpury College saw a fantastic programme of events, stretching across 9 months of preparation and competition. These finals brought this year’s Archery School Games to an exciting conclusion, it would be great to see Regional and National Schools finals in place in the near future!
The winning Secondary School Teams.
With more than 60 schools & 1500 pupils involved in the team & individual competitions in the last year and Level 3 Primary School Games Finals happening for the first time it has been an amazing success and we plan to make it even bigger and better next year!
4 hours of competition organised by Deer Park Archers!
The Partnership between Active Gloucestershire, Xperience Archery, the School Sports Coordinators and Deer Park Archers has made this possible and goes from strength to strength and has put archery on the map across the County!
As a Club we can be really proud of the way our volunteers have supported the events and the impact it has had on the community and our sport!
Primary School Games Finals (Friday)
8 Teams, each with 9 archers, that had qualified through their District Finals competed during the morning to establish a ranking which would determine if they were to compete in the Genesis (Traditional kit) finals or ‘Arrows’ (Adapted kit) finals in the afternoon. The top 4 sides qualified for the Genesis final.
Bishops Cleeve 397, Blockley 387, Hillview 369, Sapperton 366 qualified for the Genesis final.
Lydney 347, Callowell 344, North Nibley 327, Nailsworth 302 qualified for the ‘Arrows’ final.
One of the 3 medal winning teams.
The afternoon sessions were very close and the excitement maintained until the last arrows were shot.
Congratulations go to: 1st Bishops Cleve, 2nd Hillview & 3rd Blockley for taking the medals in the Genesis Class.
All the teams had a fantastic day.
They also go to: 1st North Nibley, 2nd Lydney & 3rd Callowell who took the medals in the ‘Arrows’ final.
In the individual events it was a clean sweep for Hillview;
Great day for the Hillview team!
Girls: 1st Alana (Hillview), 2nd Lara (Blockley) & 3rd Amy (Bishops Cleeve).
Boys: 1st Tom (Hillview), 2nd Sam (Bishops Cleeve) & 3rd Ross (Lydney).
To illustrate the scale of the competition, there are 5 districts and the competition for Level 3 Stroud places involved 16 Primary Schools seeking qualification to the finals!
Secondary School Games (Saturday)
The finals event saw more than 80 archers compete in both team and individual categories, representing 18 schools. Qualification took place in the morning session with Head to Head Elimination in the afternoon such that excitement was maintained right until the end.
Most of the equipment was provided by the club making the competition more accessible.
The morning Team Qualification Round saw: Archway 93, Balcarras A 92, Balcarras B 52, HSFG 46 & SWR 39 taking the top 5 places.
In an exciting afternoon finale Balcarras ‘A’ took Gold, Archway Silver & Balcarras ‘B’ the Bronze!
The Individual Competition
Mixed Individual Recurve (years 7-11) saw Robbie Baker (Chosen Hill) take Gold, Hamish Ponton (Bourneside) Silver & Charlotte Lunt (Balcarras) Bronze.
Medals presented by an Olympic Gold Medalist!
Mixed Individual Compound (years 7-11) saw James Howse (Chosen Hill) take Gold, Lucy Mason (Bournside) Silver & Holly Clifford (Newent) take Bronze.
A Compound Competition of the highest standard.
Further education mixed recurve saw Tom Howse (Chosen Hill) take Gold, Chloe Tucker (Glos Col) Silver & Ben Champness (Glos Col) Bronze.
Further education mixed compound saw Ben Horn (Marling) take Gold with Will Kurtze (Bournside) Silver.
The previous Friday saw the opening ceremony for the finals at Gloucester Cathedral with many of the sports putting on displays, this event, ideas like the Sports Village at the finals and the medal awarding ceremonies all highlight the innovation, commitment and organizational skills that Active Gloucestershire have brought to the County, well done to all their staff and the many volunteers that continue to support the development of sport across the county!
Some of our young volunteers having fun at the opening ceremony!
We are very lucky to have such a great Community Sports Partnership in Gloucestershire and our partnership with them and Xperience Archery is producing an amazing level of interest in our great sport!
