BUSA Outdoors 2003 Review

Review

BUSA Outdoor 2003 was held again in the wonderful setting of Lilleshall NSC near Telford and was hosted by Edinburgh Uni. 148 archers from 23 institutions were there as conditions were good, with a warm day and only a light breeze ever ruffling the trees. The field responded magnificently with a host of records tumbling and indeed a few new ones being created.

Edinburgh won the team prize with a score of 3512, beating their own 2yo record from Imperial (missing Tim Bond) second with 3334 and York third with 3201 a repeat of the indoors top three. Cambridge, who started strongly fell back to finish fourth, 50 points ahead of Oxford who struggled a little without Ben Huckvale. London narrowly finished short of 3000, 100 points ahead of Surrey, themselves 100 points ahead of Bradford. Loughborough were ninth and Exeter, the leading SWWU university on the day, narrowly kept Brunel and Bath out of the top 10.

The gents recurve was a closely fought contest all afternoon. Andrew Callaway (Bournemouth), Matt Nowicki (Edinburgh), Jonathan Paradi (Brunel) and Tim Mundon (Edinburgh) exchanged places swapping some very high scores, but eventually it was compound specialist Mundon who drew away at the death to secure the title with a new BUSA record of 918. Paradi was second on 908 Callaway third on 906, Nowicki fourth on 882. Dominic Rebello (ULU) held on to fifth from Callum MacMillan (Manchester) 874 to 872. David Wilson (Imperial) beat Stuart Dunlop (Napier) 61 golds to 59, the pair having finished on 850. The top 10 was completed by the York pair of Andrew Ash and Tom Duncan. Martin Russell (Edinburgh) was 11th at only his second BUSA competition picking up a team medal and holding off Dave Herbert (Liverpool) by 1 gold.

Without Naomi Folkard and Alison Williamson, the ladies section looked like being a two way fight between Marietta Scott (Manchester) and Lorna Provan (Heriot-Watt). Provan eventually had the edge 914 to Scott's 910. Although these two took the top two slots the gap so evident at the indoors (577 for 4th, 554 for 5th ladies recurve) was much reduced as Karen Atkins (Bath), Claire Brockett (Bradford) and Claudine Jennings (Edinburgh) kept the leaderboard dancing, Jennings taking third right at the end on 884 to Brockett's 882. Atkins faded a little 20 points back but remained well ahead of Antje Frotscher (Oxford) in sixth, Frotscher herself hotly pursued by Laura Borrer Closs (Imperial). Leo Lang (Imperial), Veronica Bray (ULU) and Diana Wood (Cambridge) were eighth, ninth and tenth, separated by only two points.

Shooting compound last year, Tim Mundon shot 104 golds out of 108, a record which looked pretty much impregnable. That is until Alistair Whittingham (Edinburgh) went one gold better with 105, giving 966 points out of 972, dropping one red in each dozen at 80 yards - a BUSA and All Unis record. As the competition developed [corr.], gents compound became a race for second place, "won" by Tim Keppie (Edinburgh) with 954. Matt Price (Nottingham Trent) and Rich Wilkins (Loughborough), both going to Korea in August for the World Student Games could only manage third and fourth respectively. Ladies Compound was won comfortably by Claire Davy (Bath) and despite missing, Hazel Weston (Surrey) held off Sara Pelham (Edinburgh) for second by a single point.

Amongst the novices too, scoring was impressive. Barry Cottrell (Surrey), 15th gent overall, easily won the gents section with 806, David Leong (Nottingham) in second on 721, 40 points clear of third placed Rui Soeiro (Imperial). John Bengtsson (Edinburgh) was fourth. The novice ladies was very close with Becky Gridley (Edinburgh) and Eloise Fowler (Imperial) trading blow for blow. In the end Emma Downie (Edinburgh) stole past them both to take first place (13th overall) with 767, Fowler on 766 and Gridley on 762. Edinburgh won noivce team with a a new BUSA and All Unis record of 2179, Nottingham trailed second on 1843, Loughborough third. Sadly for imperial, they only had a team of two when a third score of only 400 would have given them second novice team. Novice Compounds gents record fell by a mile to Chris Millar (Edinburgh) with 898 and a ladies record was created by Kirsty Sutton (Bradford) with 339 - a remarkable performance in light of injuries which threatened to rule her out of archery for good.

As for other categories, Alistair Wilson (Bangor) maintined his iron grip on the barebow record increasing it to 624. Nick Soucek (Exeter) also smashed the novice record with 385. Kelly Burns created senior and novice ladies barebow record with 336. A special mention also to Matthew Hollister (York) who created longbow record for gents (experienced and novice) with 45. In the Home Nations Scottish Unis narrowly failed to follow up on the EuroNations win as English Unis won 3606-3598. Welsh Unis were third on 2137.

The completed results were out within 25 minutes or the final whistle courtesy of the ACME team now decked out in shades who Made this Archery Competition seem Easy. Also thanks to Lilleshall staff for laying out the field and all the competitors and chief organiser Driver, sorry, Andrew Phillips and those Edinburgh club members who travelled all that distance to help out. The proposed "sore heads to sore heads" mini-tournament on Sunday had to be abandoned because it was far too hot.

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