Jonathan Tate claims European Gold

Clacton archer Jonathan Tate went to Croatia as a new member of the GB cadet team to shoot in the European Youth cup and returned with a Gold medal.
Jonathan started the week as he meant to go on as the highest ranked GB cadet in qualification ranking 4th and claiming both a national distance record and a huge personal best.

Then, following a tough schedule of shooting, Jonathan, along with team mates Alex Wise and Jacob Reid swept past teams from Austria, Moldova and Italy before meeting Russia in the team gold medal final. This was a close match but the GB team who had gained a perfect 60 score earlier in the match were not to be denied and they beat Russia on a shoot off holding their nerve while the opposition crumbled.

Jonathan said 'I have gained a huge experience from shooting on an international stage with such fantastic team mates and against tough competition and I thank ECAA for their support. My next aim is to be selected to shoot for GB in the Youth World Championships in Rosario in September.'

Imogen Newby is at it again - this time at the Junior Nationals.

The Junior Nationals is two days of competition where Imogen Newby of Braintree Bowmen shoots in the Under 14 category and which also holds a Regional and Home Nations shoot.

On the Saturday was WA rounds where Imogen shot the Metric IV and ended up with a final score of 1360, the UK Ladies U14 Recurve Champion, a new PB, National 10m Record, four County Records, Club Record…and she wasn't finished there.

England toolk the Home Nations win and then she picked up another medal as part of the victorious SCAS Regional Team.

Then back again on Sunday - this time for the AGB Rounds so Immy was shooting another 12 dozen round - the Bristol IV.

Again Imogen shot great and ended the day victorious and 1246 with a new PB, new County Record and another medal!

As Imogen says:
"I’m the Double UK Ladies U14 Recurve Champion 2017! Doesn’t get much better than that!"

For more details and Imogen's own write up of a long but successful weekend see this article.

County Team Reports

June has been a busy month for the County Team with a match against Kent closely followed by the National County Team Championships where teams from all over the country go head to head against each other over 2 days of competition at Lilleshall.

Essex lost the overall match to Kent (due to not having a barebow team) but there were some excellent debuts and record breaking performances:

"Massive congratulations to the whole team and to Imogen Newby for breaking numerous records on the day, Mark Lawrence and Sharon Lawrence for debuting for the longbow team and Kayleigh Griffin and Paul West on their debut in the adult recurve team."

The County Team Championships were a great success with the Compound Ladies Team of Daisy Clark, Nicky Hunt and Anna King narrowly losing to Kent.

"Presentations took place for the weekends combined results which saw our compound women finishing second overall. “Amazing shooting girls”, compound men finished 5th overall, recurve women 4th, recurve men 12th and longbow men 7th.
Congratulations to our medal placed girls and to our new adult team members Alex Body (debut) and Lauren Bann (debut), I am sure we will see plenty more of you in the adult team going forward."

Lesley Howells - the Team Manager - has written full match reports which are available on the Team Match Reports page and don't forget to watch out for reminders of when to send in your scores for the next County Team Matches

Alex Body is Double County Champion

Alex turns 18 in a few days so the Junior County Championship which was held this weekend (10 June) was Alex's last one.

The day was bright and sunny though there was plenty of wind but Alex battled through and took the win on the York Round.

He then came back the next day for the Senior Championship (11 June) and shot the York again but this time against the Seniors for the first time - and Won that.

Well done Alex - has the Essex Junior and Senior Championship been held at the same time by the same person before?

Alex Breaks Record Older Than He Is

Alex Body has been shooting well recently and at the Noak Hill Westerns it looks like he had a very good day.

It was blustery and we have thunder just before the start of the shoot but Alex overcame the conditions and shot a new PB.

It also is a new County Record (subject to ratification) for the New Western of 714 which beats the previous record which had been held for over 30 years by Richard Selway at 708 since 1983.

Congratulations Alex and I'm sure this is not the last time PBs and records will go this year.