Nottingham. The home of R***n H**d.  I rankle a bit when I hear the name, because it’s the laziest of lazy journalistic cliches but still gets routinely trotted out whenever target archery is mentioned. When Alison Williamson –  six times an Olympian for Great Britain and an Olympic bronze medallist in 2004 – retired, the Midlands radio show they chose to announce it on played the song. You know. That one. You get the feeling they wouldn’t do that to Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Still, I suppose it did feel appropriate to have the meet here, in a town brimming with mediaeval history.  I was on multi-media duties for the last three days: writing, photographing, interviewing and social media-ing. On finals day, in Old Market Square, I had quickly portrait up winners and losers, which is why a lot of the photos are, well, that.

It was preceded by a continental qualifying tournament,  on the Thursday evening and Friday morning, with six precious Rio spots available and packed with drama and tension, cheers and tears. You can read about that here.

Special thanks to Jon Nott and team for pulling together such a remarkable event, with a truly spectacular finals venue, sold out on Sunday. Incredible job. I have no idea how you’d manage something this size. Just brilliant.

And it was a great weekend for GBR: qualifying a place for Rio, making four finals and taking two well-deserved medals, and a crowd keen on making a racket. Moving back towards the top tier.  In the words of Martin Evans, “I think the lion’s claws are starting to grow back”.

So who won? Full results are here. You can read the news reports I had a hand in, too:

Recurve – individual & mixed team

Recurve – teams

GBR – recurve teams

GBR – Huston

Compound – teams

Compound – individual

As for photos: as well as Dean’s pics from the weekend you can look through the albums of Derek Sizeland, Dean Layton-James, and Bimble, too.  Thanks to everybody, and great to put a few faces to names, too. What a great weekend.

Olympic Continental Qualifying Tournament

 

 

FINALS DAY  – COMPOUND

FINALS – RECURVE SUNDAY