Barebow Champions at National County Team Championships 2025

BCAA Barebow take GOLD at the National County Team Championships 2025!  On the weekend of the 27th/28th September ArcheryGB hosted the National County Team Championships 2025 at Lilleshall NSCC. Bedfordshire fielded a team to compete in the Barebow category taking gold as overall team winners alongside multiple gold and silver medals across seperate categories throughout the weekend. A statement from the county team managers Suzi Bredin and Terry Course: “This year for the first time in a long time, Bedfordshire had enough archers to enter two barebow teams in the National County Team Championships. For us as team managers we couldn’t have been more proud and delighted for them! They trained hard before the event and it was definitely worth it! Then, to add to their fantastic performance they put Bedfordshire firmly on the archery map.” What is the National County Team Championships? The National County Team Championships (NCTC) is a annual event hosted by ArcheryGB (Formerly GNAS) where AGB affiliated counties are able to compete for across 4 bowtypes to claim the title of their respective categories. The categories are Recurve, Compound, Barebow and Longbow. The tournament is a 2-day event held at Lilleshall NSCC consisting of 2 days of a singular WA720 and head-to-heads (H2Hs) on both the Saturday and Sunday. Day 1 consists of mens and female team qualifications followed by H2Hs and then day 2 the teams are split into 3-tiers a male and female archer where again its a WA720 qualificiation round followed by team H2Hs. You can find more information about WA720s on the ArcheryGB website. The BCAA Barebow Squad: Female Barebow: Sarah Russell (Clophill AC) Nicole Henniker (Kestrels AC) Illaria Knibb (Clophill AC) Mens Barebow: Rene Bekker (Clophill AC) David Erwood (St Neots Bowmen) Thomas Foster (Clophill AC) County Team Managers: Terry Course Suzi Bredin Day 1 – Report Day 1 started with the a WA720 qualifier which would help decide the initial rankings for the afternoons head-to-head matches. The mens team finished 1st in qualifying with a combined score of 1821 where the women qualified 2nd with a score of 1695. These scores established the tiers that would be used for Day 2. In the afternoon, the mens team fought their way to the gold medal match losing to Norfolk leaving the mens team with a silver medal for day 1, the womens team only just lost out on a podium place finishing 4th in the womens team barebow. Day 2 – Report From the previous days scores the team tiers had been decided. The tiers were as follows: Tier 1 Rene Bekker & Illaria Knibb Tier 2 Sarah Russell & David Erwood Tier 3 Nicole Henniker & Thomas Foster The qualification scores from the morning places our Tier 1 and 2 teams in 1st seed where our Tier 3 team were seeded 4th. The afternoon brought more success with podiums for all our Tiers helping Bedfordshire claiming the overall barebow county team championships gold. The medal totals: Mens Barebow: ???????????? Tier 1: ???????? Tier 2: ???????? Tier 3: ???????? Bedfordshire: ???????????????????????? A statement from team member Sarah Russell: “It was fantastic being part of such a supportive and enthusiastic team. I think we all had so much confidence in each other, that it took the pressure off and gave us all room to enjoy the event, which also helped us perform and win medals. The barebow category has grown incredibly in the past two years, and I expect it to continue. I think the Bedfordshire team will continue to raise the bar and I’m excited to see what the team will achieve next year. It was an absolute honour to shoot with such a fantastic team and I really hope to get the opportunity to do so again.” A huge congratulations to the team.  If you want to get involed with county archer in Bedfordshire keep an eye out for county rounds and updates regarding the squad. The indoor season will see  Photo credit Malcolm Rees.