Imperial Archers triumph at BUCS Indoors 2025
Huge wins were achieved by the Club on Saturday 8th February in BUCS 2025 Indoor Archery Competition hosted at Bristol University, including 3 medals and a 6th place finish for the newly entered Experienced Women’s Recurve team.
The Imperial College Archery Club (ICAC) competitors left bright and early at 12pm on Saturday for BUCS. Heaving their bags into the Coombe Dingle Sports Complex after a two-hour-plus drive from London to Bristol, our archers were both excited and nervous for the shoot. For many it was their first BUCS, yet they faced the challenge and shot valiantly despite the pressure of competition and freezing cold of a February evening. 60 arrows were shot per archer at a 60cm target face from 20 yards away, three at a time. Each arrow could score up to 10 points, achieved by hitting the six-centimetre-wide centre. This makes it all the more impressive to see competitors today reach 580+ points. Six arrows were allowed at the beginning of the shoot as “sighters”, practice arrows to adjust your aim, and each round was timed.
The Club’s novices, having only shot for four months thus far, did impressively well. Frank Chong won 6th place in Novice Men’s Recurve, Katie Lee won 8th in Novice Women’s Recurve, and Sze Yuen Luk won 3rd place and a shiny bronze medal in Novice Women’s Barebow. Congratulations to them for the huge progress they’ve made since October.
Further congratulations to Isabella Bruguier for achieving 2nd place in Experienced Women’s Compound, and to Yin Chan for 2nd place in Experienced Men’s Recurve. They, along with the other Imperial archers who qualified this weekend, will progress to the BUCS Indoor Finals in March. Best of luck to them. Following the BUCS competition, ICAC members are looking to train and improve their shooting ready for the BUCS Outdoors, and next year’s Indoors.
In terms of team rankings, Imperial came 3rd in Men’s Non-compound and 6th in Women’s Non-compound. This is the first time in years that ICAC have been able to enter an experienced women’s team, and the captain Simeng Li hopes there are many more years of the team to come.
BUCS team 2025: Safiyya Ahmed, Sze Yuen Luk, Yin Chan, Alan Bannon, Chaoyi Jing, Toby Lam, Simeng Li, Isabella Bruguier, Catherine Saat, Johnny Chan, Freddy Liang, Katie Lee, Natalie Ho, Harrison Moss (not shooting), Frank Chong, and Lauren Rutherford.
