Following success at the European Youth Cup, excitement is now building for the pinnacle event of the youth competition year, the World Archery Youth Championships which will take place from the 2-8 October in Rosario, Argentina. Selection has been demanding for both the recurve and compound categories and Archery GB Performance is confident that it will take a highly competitive team to face the best in the world.
Compound Selection
The Compound team for the World Archery Youth Championships were selected as per the published selection document for this event.
The scores submitted by athletes were exceptional across the board and nine of the selected athletes have achieved world class scores consistent with a top four finish at an international event.
This has led to a highly experienced team that includes the European Champion, Lucy Mason, along with Layla Annison and Hollie Smith, who together hold the cadet women's team World Record. Also attending will be 2015 triple World medallist, James Howse, as well as his World team silver medal teammates, Luke Ralls and Adam Carpenter and many other medal winners.
Recurve selection
Athletes in contention for selection for the World Archery Youth Championships took part in Archery GB's Youth Festival as the final event in a four-stage selection process.
As well as performing strongly throughout the events, athletes were also required to demonstrate that they could be highly competitive on the international stage and contribute to the objective of medal winning success according to the standards outlined in the official selection policy. Consideration was also given to the opportunity for athletes to build successful teams to maximise medal chances.
A cumulative score was calculated from athletes' performances across all four key events. Subject to demonstrating international competitiveness, athletes ranked 1 and 2 were selected with the third place being a coach pick.
First and second ranked junior women, Lizzie Warner and Eleanor Piper, will travel to Rosario together with seasoned athlete Bryony Pitman as coach pick.
In both cadet fields, the first, second and third ranked athletes were selected. Competition was extremely tight in a very strong cadet men field, where five of the top athletes had consistently achieved scores commensurate with international competitiveness. In the end Jacob Reid took the third place. He followed this by breaking the UK record with a 60m 720 score of 677 at Aim4Sport's ATC WA720 shoot on 2 September.
The WYC is a qualifying event for places for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games. At the WYC, there will be a secondary quota tournament which will determine 16 men's and 16 women's places. Only recurve athletes born on or after 1 January 2001 and on or before 31 December 2003 are permitted to compete to secure a place. All three cadet women will compete in the quota tournament but Jacob Reid is the only cadet man who will be eligible to secure a place.
Selected athletes
| Compound Junior Men | Compound Junior Women | Recurve Junior Women | Compound Cadet Men | Recurve Cadet Men | Compound Cadet Women | Recurve Cadet Women |
| Luke Ralls | Isabelle Carpenter | Lizzie Warner | Adam Carpenter | Alex Wise | Lucy Mason | Louisa Piper |
| James Howse | Phoebe Pine | Eleanor Piper | Kai Thomas-Prause | Jonathan Tate | Layla Annison | Alyssia Tromans-Ansell |
| Dean Hamilton | Sarah Moon | Bryony Pitman | Jake Walsh | Jacob Reid | Hollie Smith | Thea Rogers |
Staff
Team Manager: Naomi Gibson
Recurve Coaching Team: Naomi Folkard and Nicky Hunt
Compound Coaching Team: Jon Nott and Simon Scott
Team Assistant/Chaperone: Cait Leach
