BERT ENJOYS SUCCESSFUL ARCHERY SEASON – HIGHLIGHT BRONZE MEDAL IN SLOVENIA
We recently received the following information from Rog Smart, very proud dad of Bert, Year 11 student at Richmond and also a highly accomplished archer, competing for the Great Britain U18 team at international level. Read on to find out more about Bert’s brilliantly successful season:
“This season, Bert has competed at local, regional, national and international events, representing Thirsk Bowmen at junior and senior level; Yorkshire County Archery senior team and Great Britain U18s.
The summer season started back in early April with Bert needing to secure two more qualification scores for selection for the Great Britain team ahead of the European Youth Cup in Slovenia later in the year. After a draughty first competition in Shropshire, the following week saw Bert finish a credible fifth behind three international archers at Meriden and importantly, he’d shot another qualification score. Late April saw Bert win his first competition of the season, at home at Thirsk, again producing a selection score in the process and securing maximum points in the GB Senior National Ranking Competition. After a long trip to Woking for the National Tour Stage 2, Bert secured his final qualification score, narrowly losing a head-to-head match 144-142. He was then invited to the National Team’s selection weekend at Lilleshall where he shot against all the U21 archers as part of the selection process.
Bert competed the Archery GB Junior Archery Series, shooting events at York, Ashington and Wallingford, where he won silver, gold and bronze medals respectively and progressed through to the finals day at Meriden where he won bronze and finished second overall for the series. This was a youth category and included the U21s, many of whom are also international archers, so the standard was consistently high all summer; an excellent competition.
In amongst the junior series, Bert was also competing the senior National Tour series, with further trips to Lilleshall and Barnsley where he shot head-to-head against the very best in the country and several of the senior international team. He finished a credible 31st overall and was the highest ranked U18.
The season highlight was to be selected to represent Great Britain at the European Youth Cup in Slovenia. Bert competed individually and made it to the bronze medal match, having beaten archers from Hungary, Belgium and Slovenia in the previous rounds, where he was beaten by an archer from South Africa in very good match; Bert had scored a new PB in a previous head to head match in the run up to the semi-finals. However, in the mixed team competition, Bert shot with Chloe Scott from Cornwall. Seeded fourth, they had a bye through the first round, beat Netherlands in the quarter final, lost to Italy in the semi-finals and then won the bronze medal final against Belgium, where Bert shot his highest arrow average of the season: 79 from a possible 80! After this taste of international representation, Bert is already looking to secure qualification scores for next season!
To see Bert in action in the above-described match, click on the link below and watch between 25:05 and 42:59
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8kql7g6Maxk
At the end of September, Bert represented the senior Yorkshire team at the National County Team Tournament at Lilleshall. He was part of a very young three-man Yorkshire team which included two senior internationals. This came with a certain amount of pressure and even before an arrow had been shot there was plenty of speculation amongst the spectators that Yorkshire were favourites to win. And they didn’t disappoint. Seeded second, they beat North Wales, Worcestershire, Hampshire on a nail-biting one-arrow shoot-off after scores were tied and then beat Durham and Northumberland in the final! Together with the ladies team and with another medal for Bert in the mixed team competition, Yorkshire were overall winners!
The outdoor season is nearly over; Bert is representing Yorkshire Juniors next week at Knutsford in the Northern Counties match. He has just been invited to the performance pathway group at Archery GB, over winter, to train with the national squad again and is already looking forward to the indoor season and working hard towards more international representation next year.”
Congratulations to Bert – we look forward to following his progress next season!