BUSA Indoors 2002 Review

Cambridge University won the 2002 BUSA Indoor Championships, beating off a fierce challenge from hosts Edinburgh 2215 to 2208, Oxford were third with 2176, closely followed by Imperial then Heriot-Watt. Russell Tizard-Varroe from the Swansea Institute won gents recurve with 575, from Kevin Sheppard (Bath) with 573, and Ben Huckvale (Oxford) in 3rd with 570. Karen Atkins of Bath, destroyed the ladies field with 579, Marietta Scott (Manchester) was 2nd, Jenny Thompson (St Andrews) was 3rd. In the compounds, Dave Spinner (ULU) took advantage of a below par Tim Mundon (Edinburgh) winning by 570 to 569 a result that remained in doubt until the last arrow. Mike Ampstead (Surrey) kept the pressure on the pair with 566, finishing third. Christina Clarke now of Nottingham won Ladies Compound with beating her ex team-mates Lucy Spackman (Edinburgh) 2nd on 558 and Philippa Ascough (Edinburgh) 3rd on 554, who recovered well after a bad start. Imperial, largely due to Laura Borrer-Closs (1st Lady Novice on 532) beat Edinburgh into 2nd for the novice team.

The shoot was split with 8 bosses in a smaller hall upstairs and the remaining 26 bosses in the main hall downstairs. In the morning session, Edinburgh took a 3 point lead over Cambridge after the first dozen inspired by an opening 116 from Glyn Ball, and increasd this lead slowly to 11 points after the first three dozen. Cambridge fought back however and although the four scores on each team were virtually identical at the finish, Cambridge had a small but crucial advantage. This was typified by both sides' leading Gents recurves, Chris Cowburn 5th on 563 and Andy Somers 6th on 562 as against Glyn Ball 7th and Matt Nowicki 8th, both on 560.

In the afternoon the team leaderboard was very close indeed with Imperial, Bath, York and St Andrews all being within a handful of points all the way through. None of them could match the leading pair however despite individual medal performances from Karen Atkins, Kevin Sheppard (both Bath) and Jenny Thompson (St Andrews). In the morning session, Claudine Jennings (Edinburgh) had fought nip and tuck with Roz Bowen (Heriot-Watt) with both eventually shooting 550, but were scores were swept past in the afternoon. Oxford held 3rd place from a lack-lustre Heriot-Watt, for whom Roz Bowen suffered a minor asthma attack and was forced to pull out, but was sensibly allowed to complete her shoot in the afternoon losing out on 4th place by 25 golds to 23. Ben Huckvale was Oxford's star with 570, enough for 3rd gent with Derek Burrough (Heriot-Watt) fourth on 568. In contrast to this leniency, Rob Neal (Imperial) had a written warning, then an arrow value disallowed after being timed out knocking him down from 568 to 558 and from 5th to 9th Gents Recurve.

Elsewhere Laura Borrer-Closs (Imperial) demolished the Laides Novice field with 532, whilst the Gents Novice medals were hotly contested with 8 points covering the top three, James Lowry (Dundee) 1st with 503. With both St Andrews and Heriot-Watt failing to really ignite, England won the home nations with 2288 to Scotland's 2251, Wales third on a respectable 2079. Noticeable was the fact that the four individual winners came from Swansea Institute, Bath, ULU and Nottingham Universities, of whom only Bath were realistic contenders for team medals, which should hopefully banish forever the notion of some sort of team qualifying for these Champs.

On the organisational side, Tim Mundon's database was used to good effect for a leaderboard, although a printer problem prevented us from having a full list for every dozen. We were held up a good deal because it was impossible to gain entry to the smaller upstairs hall during a detail, but it was either that or a third detail. Thanks to all those Edinburgh archers who helped and shot, especially Dave Sewell, Claudine Jennings and Tim Mundon, for their invaluable contributions. Results were ready before 7pm (a combined field of 231 remember) in a packed "Crags" and the socials went on long into the Edinburgh night.

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