2010 Archery European Championships, Roverto, Italy

29th May 2010

British archer Andy Rikunenko has won a European Championship gold medal.  Rikunenko, from Redditch, held his nerve and silenced a partisan home crowd as he beat Italy's Sergio Pagni in the final of the men's compound tournament at Rovereto, Italy.
In five tightly contested sets, Rikunenko took the gold with a 6-4 win, and then described his achievement as "simply awesome".
"To be the European Champion is a fantastic feeling, and I am absolutely ecstatic, especially beating such a top class opponent in Sergio, and in his home country as well - it's simply awesome.
"I have worked really hard for this, and to win the gold medal means that everything has come together."

Charlotte Burgess and Simon Terry - 28th May 2010
British archers have won the bronze medal in the mixed recurve team tournament, at the European Target Championships, in Rovereto, Italy.
Simon Terry and Charlotte Burgess beat rivals from Denmark and Poland, before losing to eventual gold medallists Italy (Marco Galiazzo and Natlia Valeeva) in the semi-finals.

That set up a showdown for the bronze medal with Ukraine, after the pairing of Victor Ruban and Victoriya Koval lost to Germany (Sebastian Rohrberg and Elena Richter) in their semi-final.

Despite suffering with a streaming cold, Charlotte ploughed on, and clearly inspired by a determined Simon – looking to make up for the disappointment of his shock first round exit in the individual championship – shot superbly to secure a medal.

Said Charlotte: “I’m really thrilled by this, I’ve loved shooting with Simon, we really gelled as a pairing, and though we’ve already set our sights on improving next time, we are both delighted to have a medal.”


 

2nd Leg Archery World Cup Series, 2010 – Antalya, Turkey
Nicky Hunt
9th June 2010
Nicky Hunt suffered an agonising defeat in the final of the women's compound individual tournament in Antalya, and had to settle for a second successive World Cup silver medal.

But compensation for the British archer is that she leads the overall standings at the halfway stage of this year's World Cup series - and is looking in a good position to reach the Grand Final for the second year running. This year's gala event takes place in Edinburgh in September.

Nicky was beaten 7-3 in the final by Erika Anschutz, with the American clinching the gold medal with one set to spare.

Using the hit and miss system that is being trialed for the compound archers in Antalya, and again in Ogden at the World Cup round three, Nicky took a 2-0 lead with 2 hits on gold to her opponents' one in the first set.

Anschutz hit back with three out of three hits in set two to level the match at 2-2, after Nicky failed to score with two of her arrows, and both archers scored one hit each in set three, to tie the match score at 3-3 at the halfway stage of the match.
Anschutz then took set four, with two hits to Nicky's none, to move 5-3 ahead, and the atmosphere was tense in set five as Nicky tried to claw her way back into the match. Both archers scored hits with their first two arrows, but Nicky then missed with her third.

That meant that the American would secure the gold medal if she scored a hit with her third arrow, and to the disappointment of the GB contingent, that's precisely what she did, to take an unassailable 7-3 lead.

 


 

 

Busby, Grimwood and White. 10th June 2010

Britain has won the bronze medal in the men's compound team tournament at the FITA World Cup tournament, in Antalya, Turkey .

Chris White, Duncan Busby and Liam Grimwood beat their rivals from the Netherlands in the third place shoot-off. And they did it by taking part in the first 'Hit and Miss' match at a major FITA tournament, a system that is being trialled in the compound team tournaments.

The 'Hit and Miss' format sees each team member shoot one arrow each per set at a 9 centimetre gold scoring zone from 50 metres. They only score a point if they hit the gold, and then the winner of the set takes two points. If the set is drawn it is one point each.

So against the Netherlands, both teams hit the gold zone just once in the first set, meaning the scores were tied 1-all, which became 2-all when agin, just one archer from each team managed to strike gold.

GB edged ahead in the third set with two hits on gold to the Netherlands' one, meaning Chris, Liam and Duncan led 4-2 at the half-way stage.

But the Dutchmen drew level with two hits on gold to GB's one in the fourth set, before the British lads finished with a flourish: Chris, Liam and Duncan all hitting the gold zone with their last two shots each, earning them both the set, and overall victory by 8 points to 4.

Note to editor -

All of these archers will be amongst those in action at the England Archery Team Selection Shoot for the Commonwealth Games on the 19th/20th June