UK Student Archery Association

Clout and Target wins for Bath [14/May/12]

On Saturday 29th April, Bath hosted the first British Universities Clout Championships, followed one week later by SWWU match 4.

Archers from four universities contested the Clout Champs, with hosts Bath joined by archers from Birmingham, Exeter and Southampton in braving heavy rain and gusty conditions. There were 6 retirements from a field of only 23 to start with and it was hosts Bath who were the recurve team winners, with Alex Hickson, Kieran Bodkin and novice Jonathan Hilliard, whilst Exeter won the barebow team trophy. Individual winners were Alex Hickson (Bath) and Zoe Hawken (Birmingham). Top novices were Nimmit Prabhachar (Southampton) and Eloise Cornish (Birmingham).

Although this event was small and battered by the elements, it is always great to see continued innovation within the student archery scene. This is the first time there has been a Clout specific tournament for students (although it was also an Open) which is a bold move, given that the currently calendar of student archery events is 100% target.

One week later, Bath were at home again, this time in the context of SWWU match 4 and took control of the SWWU table with their third league win on the bounce. The match was held in the style of BUCS Outdoors, with the seniors shooting their respective FITA's and the novices shooting the Metric I (gents) or Metric II (ladies), the only difference being that novices were allowed to form part of the teams.

Bath cruised home in first, on 3274, with an 1174 from Alex Hickson top scoring in the match by an enormous 263 points. Xi Yuan (Exeter) shot 911 as Exeter finished on 2200 exactly, nearly 300 clear of Swansea. Swansea brought no experienced recurves with them at all, leaving novice barebow Anna Lawrence in the highly unusual position of having qualified for her senior team, but simultaneously not having qualified for her novice team.

The novice match was extremely close, but it was Swansea who came out on top by 2 points, 1591 against 1589 for Bath. Mark Evans (Swansea) top scored in the novice match comfortably with 737.

See results and tables from Clout Champs and SWWU.

League organiser Xi Yuan has confirmed that scores from BUCS Outdoors will be used as the fifth and final SWWU leg of the season. [paragraph added 15th May]