UK Student Archery Association

Croft makes last 16 in China [27/Sep/10]

After all the team selection business, the GB team got on with the real business in Shenzhen over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The recurves were Andrew Callway (Bournemouth), Craig Bowley and Glen Croft (both Birmingham City) with compound Phil Glover (Loughborough).

Andrew Callaway was making an record breaking fifth appearance for the British student team, a record he had previously held jointly with Tim Mundon. Only four people have ever managed three caps, the other two being David Spinner and Richard Wilkins. Phil Glover made hi second appearance, having shot in 2008 in Tainan, with Craig Bowley and Glen Croft appearing for the first time.

The ranking round for recurves was a FITA 720, that is six dozen arrows at 70m. With 43 gent recurves in the field, the top 21 would get a bye in the round of 64 and Glen Croft made this cut, finishing 19th with 639 (317+322), ahead of Andrew Callaway, 27th on 627 (314+313) and Craig Bowley 31st on 613 (298+315). This combined total of 1879 easily beats the existing British student record of 1791 set back in 2000.

The compounds shot six dozen at 50m in the ranking round and out of the 30 gent compounds present, Phil Glover finished 17th on 673 (342+331), although he had been as high as 7th at half way.

Both Callaway and Bowley made short work of lower ranked opposition in the round of 64 however. Callaway beat Thia Wei Soon (Singapore) 4-0 - winning both sets of six arrows comfortably, whilst Bowley beat Mathias van Bulck (Belgium), also 4-0, although this match was much closer. In the round of 32, the archers shot sets of three arrows, 2 points for a win, 1 for a tie, with the first to six points, much like in the Archery World Cup Finals held in Edinburgh. Bowley ran into second seed Hsieh Chung Hao (Taiwan) in the round of 32, losing 7-1, although was rarely out of touch in the match. Callaway stared with a perfect end/set of 30 to take the lead against sixth seed Yoshitaka Nishimura (Japan) before eventually going down 6-4 in the final end/set. Croft, seeded 19th was up against 14th seed Massimiliano Mandia (Italy). Two 28's and a 29 later, the British archer cause the upset winning 6-2.

In the round of 16, Croft shot against Jin Jae Wang (Korea), seeded third. After three ends the score was still level at 3-3, but from here the Korean powered away with the match and in fact went on to win the individual silver medal. Still, at only 20 years of age, this was an excellent performance from Croft who may well be back in Shenzhen in 2011, when the Summer Universiade kicks off there in August.

Compounds moved straight on to the round of 32, so Phil Glover shot against Abhishek Verma (India), 17th v 16th. Glover couldn't produce the upset here and went down 5-1, with hit/miss targets and sets in use for scoring here. At this point, a special mention to the one man Irish team who attended this tournament. Gents compound John Smith (Dublin IT) qualified 28th with 658 (327+331). He then upset 5th seed Hamzeh Nekouei (Iran) in a shoot off, after the match finished dead level. In the next round, Smith then upset Matteo Uggeri (Italy) who had qualified in 12th. Smith's run was finally ended in the quarter-finals by fourth seeded Julien Depoitier (Belgium).

GB's only interest in the team round was gents recurve, where the team total of 1879 was enough for 9th place. Unfortunately this pitted them against 8th placed hosts China. The scoring here was traditional hit/miss, i.e. just overall totals, not sets. GB took an early lead 3-2 after the first end but suddenly China came alive with 11 out of 12 hits, giving them a 13-9 lead going in to the last pass, the match finishing 15-11.

Results are available here: www.worldarchery.org.

After all the confusion with team selection leading up to this event, the archers did perform well, with three individual wins in the knock out and Glen Croft making the last 16. If you think you might be good enough, then start collecting your scores for the 26th World Uni Summer Games - in Shenzhen again in August.