The week has kicked off at the European Para Archery Championships 2022 in Rome, Italy with a record-breaking qualification round.
Our GB archers have now all completed their qualification round, ranking them in their respective categories ahead of the individual eliminations.
In the recurve men's open category, David Phillips ranked in 4th place overall with a score of 607 points, and Cameron Radigan finished up in 13th position with 572 points.
For recurve men's open doubles, David and Cameron's combined score of 1,179 has put them in 3rd place.
"Qualifying today came with its challenges. I've never experienced heat like it before. I suffer from a medical condition that doesn't like the hot weather, so myself and the team support staff had many strategies on hand to help with cooling. I started strong leading the field after the first 360, but with an unpredictable strong breeze after the break I made a few errors ranking me in 7th place. I then reset my process and climbed back to joint 3rd, but loosing out on number of 10's to place 4th overall. I'm amazed that I'm able to perform at this level with the medical issues I have, but we've worked long and hard to manage potential obstacle that may arise. If it wasn't for family, friends, and support, especially Archery GB, UK sport and the National lottery, it would not have been possible," David said.
Unfortunately, due to illness Hazel Taylor only completed the first 3 dozen of the 6 dozen round, scoring 268 points to put her in 11th place.
For the recurve open mixed team, Hazel and David's combined score of 875 placed them in 7th.
For the compound men's open category, Nathan MacQueen ranked in 2nd place with a score of 695. This score equalled the Finnish archer who ranked first, but Nathan came just behind as his 10 and X count, was 48 versus the other archer's 50. Teammate Jamie Harris ranked in 23rd place with a score of 666.
In the doubles division, Nathan and Jamies ranked in 4th place overall with 1,361 points.
"So the conditions were pretty good. The heat was the biggest challenge especially with a spinal injury, but I think myself and the staff managed it well with cooling vests etc. I'm really really happy with my performance here at the Europeans, especially given that it's my first shoot since Tokyo after missing Dubai with Covid and Czech Republic due to illness," Nathan told us.
For the compound women's open, Jessica Stretton topped the rankings with 695 points, equalling the current world record. Phoebe Paterson Pine was just behind her teammate in 3rd position with 690 points.
For the doubles, Jessica and Phoebe ranked in 1st place with a total of 1,385 points. This score beat Jessica and Phoebe's own world record which they achieved in Nove Mesto this year at the Para Archery European Cup with 1,376 points.
Â"The conditions for shooting were not ideal for most people, but with the right cooling strategies, the heat was manageable. I think it helped that I really love it, and work best when it's warmer. I think my shooting went well. I don't tend to focus on the outcome when I shoot, so I wasn't prepared to learn how well I'd done, but I'm pleased that my process focus worked so well," Jessica said.
For the compound open mixed team, Nathan and Jessica ranked in 1st place with a combined score of 1,390.
Martin Saych, who is competing in the W1 open men's category, scored 619 points which has put him in 8th place in the rankings.
On the women's side, Victoria Kingstone ranked in 5th place with a score of 598 points.
As a combined W1 open mixed team, Martin and Victoria have score 1,217 points which puts them in 4th position.
Follow the results of the event which can be found here.
