BUSA Outdoors 2008 Review

2008 Results [347kb]


Review

Edinburgh successfully defended their BUSA Outdoors crown to complete the domestic treble in wet and windy conditions at Lilleshall. Warwick completed their hat-trick of second places, whilst Imperial scooped bronze. Heavy rain dominated the long metric with windy conditions all day (plus a further downpour towards the end) making for miserable conditions. Several lengthy delays, some caused by the conditions, some by the competitors, contributed to a shoot that needed all of the daylight the longest day of the year could muster. Edinburgh's winning side was Jenny Jeppsson (1229) with Alexander Lamb (1173), Gregor Schnuer (1134) and David Lange (1116) in support, Jeppsson and Lamb were also individual recurve champions. Phil Glover (Loughborough) and Stephanie Crang (Gloucestershire) won the compound divisions with 1344 and 1299 respectively. Top novices (shooting the Metric I and II) were Dave Hollinshead (Cambridge) on 996 and Naomi Jones (Edinburgh) on 1140. Conditions undoubtedly played a role in reducing a field of 257 starters to 229 by the finish.

Edinburgh seemed almost at home in the largely unpleasant weather, their winning total of 4652 was over 100 points per person clear of, perhaps inevitably, Warwick. Warwick further confirmed their status as England's leading student club, adding BUSA Outdoors silvers to the silvers already obtained at BUSA Indoors and BUTC. Warwick's team total of 4223 came from Thomas Hutchins (1137), Phil King (1086), Christopher Butler (1070) and Julie Chenery (930). Imperial, bronze medallists twelve months ago, repeated the feat with 3897 and a team of Travis Woodward (1055), Jordan Muscatello (999), Lizzie Williams (982) and Alexandra Crampton-Platt (861). Imperial's best performance of the season held off close competition from a number of other clubs. Bath pipped Surrey for 4th, with their best placing at this event for six years on 3824, Surrey a mere 5 points behind. Top scorer for Bath was Ieuan Lovett on exactly 1000, whilst Barry Cottrell shot 1009 for Surrey. Similarly Lancaster finished only 5 ahead of Southampton 3769-3764, despite a 1061 from Rob King. After their success at NEUAL Outdoors, Lancaster secured BUSA points in 6th, with John Lane and Matt Wilkinson contributing 1050 and 1033. Loughborough claimed the last BUSA point in eighth on 3677, top scorer Phil Middleton on 1022.

In the novice team category, Warwick were runaway winners finishing on 3004, with an astonishing winning margin of over 750. Warwick's team was Michelle Huang (1124), Matt Dale (985) and Richard Osbourne (895). Leading the distant chasing pack were Oxford on 2243, team comprising Wei-Yu Wan (769), Pippa Joyce (752) and Tom Jones (722). Lancaster were once again one place ahead of Southampton to claim bronze 2198-2151. For Lancaster, Michael Bass (942), Michael Lindsay (720) and Thomas Wright (536) were medal winners, a 914 from Becky Hall could not quite propel Southampton into third. Edinburgh and Cambridge had the fifth and sixth highest totals, despite only fielding two archers each. Indeed Edinburgh would have been in the medal positions were it not for 30m.

After finishing third last year, Alexander Lamb (Edinburgh) won gents recurve with an end to spare. Lamb was second after 90m, but top scored at both 70m and 50m to eventually run up a 36 point winning margin with 1173, despite a miss. Thomas Hutchins (Warwick) had been leading after the first distance and finished on 1137, chased all the way by Gregor Schnuer (Edinburgh) on 1134. Peter Clayton (Durham) only just had enough on 1119 to see off a late charge from David Lange (Edinburgh) and take the final BUSA point. Lange hit the highest gents 30m score of 330, but left himself too much to do after two misses early on. A good 30m propelled Rory Campbell (Sheffield) over 1100, on 1106 and sixth place, ahead of Warwick duo Phil King on 1086 and Christopher Butler on 1070. Rob King (Southampton) was ninth on 1061, Travis Woodward (Imperial) tenth on 1055, followed by Lancaster pair Matt Wilkinson and John Lane on 1050 and 1033. Eighteen gents made four figures.

In sharp contrast, only two ladies made it to four figures and it is hard to ignore the magnitude of Jenny Jeppsson's (Edinburgh) winning margin. Jeppsson scored 1229 before narrowly making her train to go the World Cup round in France. Carrie Oliver (Cambridge) trailed 207 points - about 2 dozen arrows - behind. Elizabeth Williams (Imperial) took her second bronze of the day on 982, just ahead of Joanne Orbell (Worcester) who scored 976 to take the final BUSA point available. Oxford pair Angelina Measures and Ellen Davnell were fifth and seventh, sandwiching Julie Chenery (Warwick), the BUTTS trio were the last ladies over 900.

Novice gents was a more competitive affair. Dave Hollinshead (Cambridge) had built a lead of over 40 points by the half way mark, but his lead was chipped away until it was in single digits. Hollinshead finished only four short of 1000, but crucially nine ahead of Matt Dale (Warwick), despite Dale's strong short metric. Dan Wielding (Napier) was third on 960, having top scored at 60m - Napier were the only Scottish side to field a complete novice team. Outside the medals, Michael Bass (Lancaster) 942, Sam Marsh (Bradford) 920 and YD Zheng (Edinburgh) 915 kept positions three to six constantly moving even during the short metric. Ladies novice was yet another Edinburgh-Warwick scrap as Naomi Jones (Edinburgh) and Michelle Huang (Warwick) streaked 200 points clear of the field. Jones had a 26 point advantage after the first distance, a gap which was eventually too great for Huang to overcome, final scores 1140-1121 both smashing last year's record. Lucy Bonner (York) on 936 beat Becky Hall (Southampton) to bronze.

Phil Glover (Loughborough) and Stephanie Crang (Gloucestershire) prepared for Taiwan by winning the compound categories. Glover's score of 1344 was just short of the BUSA record. Andy O'Connor (Edinburgh) and Jonathan Goodman (Loughborough) jostled constantly for second place, the gap 1 point at half way. Goodman appeared to have the edge, 4 points up with a distance to go, but it was O'Connor who snatched silver at the death 1335-1334. Malcolm Rees (Swansea) took the last BUSA point in fourth but was a hundred points adrift. Stephanie Crang's 1299 was enough to beat Becky Gridley (Keele) who shot 1265. Ali Sewell (Edinburgh) was third lady compound, but there was no fourth, so one BUSA point is not awarded. Top compound novices were James Langham (Loughborough) 1137 and Claire Goodwin (Sheffield) 720.

Predictably not using a sight and shooting a FITA in the wind meant low scores for barebow and longbow. However, barebow gents was won easily by Mark Henderson (Warwick) who scored 686, smashing the previous record whilst Helen Bundy (Derby) put a few points on her own record winning ladies barebow on 673. There were also barebow BUSA points for Bangor, York, Lancaster and Reading. Both longbow records were also smashed with Chris White (Edinburgh) on 301 and Helen Broxholme (Lancaster) on 273, BUSA longbow points also arcing towards Sheffield, Birmingham and Leeds. As with senior ladies compound, there were only three senior lady longbows. Top barebow novices were Gwain Rutter (Derby) 405 and Ann-Kathrin Marchlewski (Lancaster) 411, whilst top longbow novices were Tom Goodwin (Loughborough) 243 and Maszatul M. Mansor (Sheffield) 125.

Honours were even in the Home Nations match, as Jeppsson/Lamb/Schnuer/Lange (all Edinburgh) on 4652 beat an English team of Thomas Hutchins (Warwick), Peter Clayton (Durham), Rory Campbell (Sheffield), Phil King (Warwick) who scored 4448. The English Unis novice team total of 3102 from of Michelle Huang (Warwick), Dave Hollinshead (Cambridge) and Matt Dale (Warwick) had just too much for the Scottish Unis novice team of Naomi Jones (Edinburgh), Dan Wielding (Napier) and YD Zheng (Edinburgh) on 3015.

It is a good thing that 21st June is the longest day. The competition ran on and on, lasting over 10 hours and with over 10% of the field retiring in conditions that were miserable more or less throughout. It is worth mentioning that the extraordinarily long time it took to complete the event stemmed only partly from the conditions. Many of the archers seemed ill prepared for the round in terms of sight marks and fragile equipment. Others seemed caught out by the notion that it might rain in June. Production of the results was delayed by the poor quality of the submitted scoresheets. According to ACME estimates only 40% of targets managed to submit scoresheets which matched, had accurate arithmetic and were dry enough to be legible. leaving ACME with the unenviable task of deciphering, correcting, or even just calculating, the remaining majority. If there was a defining image of the day, it was without doubt boss number 20 having collapsed in on itself and lying in a heap of nine black blocks, target face, arrows and all.

At least camping was a less soggy experience than last year. Nine BUSA records (GBE, GBN, GCN, GLE, GLN, LBE, LLE, LLN, LRN) were broken, although perhaps this was partly to be expected with only last year's scores to aim at. Once again the difference between the day's highest and lowest points scorers exceeded 1300 as the competition gained World Record Status for the first time.