Warwick (men's) and Nottingham (women's) won the respective team recurve titles with 1662 and 1614 respectively. In the end the winners were well clear with winning margins of 51 and 59. On the men's side Oxford finished on 1611 to take silver just ahead of Leeds on 1604. Men's team bronze for Leeds is their ever first podium finish at a national student event. Durham won silver in women's team on 1555. This matches their best ever BUCS Indoor result from way back in 1988. Loughborough took women's team bronze on 1531. No team medalled in both. Leeds and Durham are the first NEUAL clubs to pick up national student team medals since Lancaster won bronze at BUTC 2009.
In the gents team results, Birmingham, Nottingham and Loughborough made it 5 BUTTS clubs in the top 6 positions. Birmingham were 25 points off the medals but took 4th on 1579, just 5 points ahead of Nottingham, with Loughborough on 1546. There was then a gap of 65 points down to 7th. Four clubs were then within 15 points of each other. BUCS points were only available to 7th and 8th, with Southampton scoring 1481 and Sheffield on 1477. Missing out on BUCS points but completing the top 10 were Plymouth and Bath. The next three teams Coventry (11th), West of England (12th) and Huddersfield (13th) all recorded their best ever national results. There were 19 complete gents teams.
In the ladies team results, Warwick narrowly missed out on medalling, finishing 4th on 1525, just 6 adrift. There was then a big drop down to fifth placed Oxford on 1442 before an even bigger one to Surrey who were sixth despite scoring 1326. Birmingham and St Andrews completed the BUCS point winning teams. There were only 10 clubs able to field a complete women's team. Once again, the lower reaches of the ladies team rankings reflect the fact that fewer women than men are allocated spaces if fewer enter the qualification process.
There were 4 compound teams of 2 this year, with Birmingham well clear of the field on 1141.
Since 2017, BUCS Indoors has used regional qualifying events to whittle down the field. In 2020, the number of regional qualifying events rose from 2 to 3. The National Finals consist of a WA18m ranking round, with a further cut for those qualifying for H2Hs. Men's and women's recurve team titles were determined from the 18m round scores. Once again, places at the finals were allocated proportionally by bowstyle, but also proportionally by gender, which gave a roughly 55/45 male/female split and meaning that women's H2H field was smaller in some bowstyles.
This is the fifth season BUCS Finals have used the WA18m format, and "only" two of the individual records were broken. For the third BUCS Indoors in a row, the gents barebow WA18 record was broken. Matt Waters (Nottingham) scored 522 - it used to be 513. Katie Axup (Loughborough), despite being a novice, comfortably won the ladies longbow section and smashed the existing record of 363, with a score of 390.
Yang Pei (Oxford) claimed the gents recurve title. The third seed beat top seed Tom Braxton (Leeds) 7-3 in the final. Braxton won the opening set 30-29, but two more 29s saw Pei edge 4-2 in front. The fourth set was halved, but another 29 in set 5, to Braxton's 28 saw Pei take the title. Pei won Oxford's first BUCS individual gold since Charlie Birch in 2015. Braxton won his third BUCS individual medal and Leeds' first (recurve) at BUCS Indoors for 35 years. Pei also won his quarter final against 6th seed Gabriel Beese-Raybould (UCLan) 7-3. The match was close until the fifth set where Beese-Raybould faded. Pei then knocked out 18th seed Alex Rowe (Plymouth) 7-1, although again this match was closer than the scoreline suggested. In all three sets won by Pei, Rowe was only one point behind. Rowe had already beaten three higher ranked archers to get to this point: two ends of 30 helping to beat James Gardner (Warwick) seeded 15th 7-1, an impressive 6-0 over 2nd seed Ben Evans (Loughborough) and a 6-5 shoot-off win over 7th seed Wills Chiu (Warwick) in the QF. Tom Braxton made his way to the final with a 7-1 win over 9th seed Ugo So (Birmingham) before a titanic semi against James Woodgate (Warwick). A pair of 29s saw Braxton go 4-0 up, but Woodgate fought back with a 29 and a 30 to level the match. In the last end, a 29 from Woodgate was not enough as Braxton cleaned up with a 30. Chris Woodgate went on to beat Alex Rowe to bronze, winning a crucial second end 30-29. In his QF, Woodgate had beaten Jack Wells (Sheffield) who was the lowest seed to make the QFs at 21st, after he'd upset 5th seed Chris Cooper (Loughborough) 6-4. From down the leaderboard, Oliver Stephenson (Lincoln) qualified in 51st, but successfully navigated his way past two higher ranked opponents, before running into eventual champion Yang Pei in the last 16.
Ffion Edgeley (Loughborough) won the ladies recurve event. Hvaing qualified 5th, she grabbed the title by beating second seed Charlotte Llewellyn-Smith (Durham). A tough match see-sawed, moving to 2-2 and then 4-4. Getting over the line proved trickier as in the fifth set, both shot their lowest end tally of the match, but it was Ffion Edgeley who made it through to win gold. Llewellyn-Smith claimed Durham's first BUCS individual recurve medal for 27 years. Only 4 of the top 8 ladies seeds actually made it to the QFs. The biggest casualty was top seed Louisa Piper (Nottingham) knocked out by 16th seed Jennika Vadher (Loughborough). Piper took the first with a 29, but lost the second to a 29. The pair shared sets 3 and 4, 29 and 28, before Vadher held her nerve to oust the top seed by a point in the fifth. However in the next round Vadher found Katie Roadknight (Lancaster) in simply imperious form. Roadknight dropped only 2 points, shooting 29-29-30 to win 6-0, before struggling in a 6-0 defeat to Edgeley in their semi-final. Edgeley had beaten 4th seed Lauren Rawlings (Chester) 6-2 in a good quality match - Edgeley's lowest set total was a 27, the only end she lost. Another top seed to tumble was Shauna Punjabi (Royal Holloway) who was ranked 3rd. Punjabi beat Hollie Murdock (Ulster) in the round of 32 before losing to 14th seed Laura Devaud (Surrey). Punjabi never shot lower than a 26, but even though Devaud had two misses in the match, she still won through 6-4. Devaud lost her QF 7-1 to Hannah Evans (Nottingham). In their QF, Charlotte Llewellyn-Smith eased past 10th seed Megan Abra (Birmingham) 6-2 - Abra needed a 30 to win her only set. Charlotte Llewellyn-Smith then beat Hannah Evans in their semi 7-3, with Llewellyn-Smith winning two close sets to finish. Evans beat Katie Roadknight in the bronze match, winning the first two sets and winning 7-3. With fewer women in the draw, there were only 32 in the knock out stages.
In compound only the top 8 gents and top 4 ladies qualified for the knock out stages. Compound KO matches are 15 arrow matches rather than sets. Second seed Jake Walsh (Edinburgh) beat top seed Callum Platt (Birmingham) 145-142 in the compound final. Walsh shot 5 ends of 29 and things were level after 9 arrows. Walsh had needed a shoot off to beat Benjamin Lawrence (St Andrews) in their semi. In the first round/QF, Callum Platt shot an All Unis record of 149. Grace Chappell (Arts Bournemouth) beat Josephine Stewart (St Andrews) in the ladies compound final 143-141. Chappell gradually eked out the 2 point lead later in the match. Zara Green (Birmingham) and Benjamin Lawrence won bronzes.
In longbow only the top 4 gents went through to knock-out phase, with the whole ladies longbow field - all 3 of them - advancing. Callum Anderson (Southampton) and novice Katie Axup (Loughborough) won the respective golds.
In barebow the top 16 women and the top 32 men qualified for the knock-out stages - the same as in 2020. Simran Panesar (Nottingham)y, seeded 3rd lady barebow beat top seed - and novice - Paula Tomaszewska (Dundee) 6-2 in the final. The two women shared the first two sets, but Panesar drew clear in sets three and four. Tomaszewska overpowered Elizabeth Roberts (Queen Mary) 6-0 in one semi final, whilst Panesar saw off a fightback from Illaria Knibb (Bristol) to win the other 6-2. Knibb beat Roberts for bronze. In the gents bracket, Matt Waters (Nottingham) made it a double for his club in a dominant display, losing only 1 set across 5 entire matches. Waters beat clubmate Ewan Kennett (Nottingham) in the semis before taking the title with a win against Rens Van Velzen (Warwick) in the final. Van Velzen beat Andriy Prysyazhnyy (Durham) 6-4. Remarkably, Prysyazhnyy was only the 26th seed and he went on to win bronze, beating Ewan Kennett 6-2 after losing the opening set.
As always, many thanks to all those who donate their time and energies to putting on a such great competition, including the teams at Warwick and the three qualifiers, Napier, Manchester and Bristol. These kind of tournaments could not happen without so many willing and able volunteers. After not being held in 2021, BUCS Indoors remains the blue riband event in the student archery calendar.
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