Bath – 25th April
Given Bath’s imperious indoor form, their home SWWU was theirs to lose. As it turned out, their dominance carried over to the longer distances, proving that the only difference between indoor and outdoor archery is hay fever and step count. Alex Williams found himself in a Bath sandwich, 2nd place between a victorious Harry Lam and Miles Pemberton. The other recurve categories followed the same script. Bath’s Priya Sitlani convincingly won women’s recurve, and the novice categories were likewise taken by Bath archers Jude Andrews and Ella Thompson. When all was said and done, Bath took home six individual gold medals. It would have been seven if Joe Maskell hadn’t decided to take a trip down the A38 last September. Unsurprisingly, this translated to a dominant home win, with Bath extending their lead at the top of the table.
Outdoor Championships – 17th May
Coombe Dingle played host to the last chance qualifier for BUCS Outdoors; those archers without a qualifying score battled it out for a place on the shooting line at the home of British archery next month. SWWU Champs offers the additional mental challenge of matchplay after the customary qualifying round. For Alex Williams, sunny outdoor champs was a repeat of chilly indoors. As in indoors he qualified strong, weathering the gusty second half of qualifying better than most, to seed 1st with a 583/720. Also, like indoors, he would lose to Luke Burch, this time in a high-quality bronze final. Bath archers Harry Lam and Hayden White battled it out for the top step of the podium. The match was a nail-biting five set affair, and each of those sets was closely contested. In the end Hayden White took the win. In barebow, Joe Maskell seeded first with a Master Bowman score of 573, before winning head to heads without conceding a set point. This makes him the only archer to have placed first at every SWWU in the ‘25/26 season.
With that, an exciting year of SWWU has drawn to a close. Congratulations to Bath for winning so convincingly this year. They stood head and shoulders above the rest, but you can be sure that the rest will be snapping at their heels next year!
