Competitions Overview
LSAC has been a highly competitive archery club since it was formed in 1966. The club competes in both university competitions (such as BUCS), and also competes in external competitions within the local area (such as the Leicestershire County Champs)
TOUCAN
Each university hosts a leg of the competition in the first or second term, with teams from two to three universities attending each leg. Two legs are held are held on the same day (or as close as possible) so that every team is competing simultaneously. For further information about The TOUCAN League and for the results of previous competitions, please visit the TOUCAN League Website.
BUCS
BUCS stands for British Universities and Colleges Sports and was formed in 2008 by the amalgamation BUSA (British Universities Sports Association) and UCS (University College Sports). BUCS is the co-ordinating body responsible for organising all official inter-university and college sport. LSAC holds the second highest number of BUCS archery records in the country.
There are three BUCS archery competitions each year (two indoor and one outdoor), open to every university archery club in the country. The Indoor Championship takes place in February or March each year, with all archers shooting a Portsmouth round in the qualifiying event followed by a WA18m and head to head round in the Indoor Finals. The Outdoor Championship takes place at the end of the academic year in June at the Lilleshall National Sports Centre in Shropshire. In 2018 The Gents Recurve Team of Arthur Coveney, Chris Cooper and Ben Evans won the gold team medal, the first Outdoor BUCS Team gold that Loughborough have won since 1983! Since 2013 there has also been a head to head event at BUCS Outdoors, although this is not technically a BUCS event and doesn't count towards BUCS points.
BUTC
The British University Team Championships (BUTC) is an annual competition, first held in 2003. The competition is hosted by a different university archery club each year. For a full description of the rules please see the BUTC Mini-site.
Following a qualification round, teams of three archers compete against each other in a head-to-head knockout competition on hit/miss target faces, with the winning team going through to the next round, and the losing team being eliminated. In 2012 LSAC's A-Team (Mat Cole, Tom Cram and Laura Church) won BUTC, giving the club their first national title since 1998 and first BUTC win. A video of the gold medal match against Nottingham University is available on YouTube. In addition to the gold medal won in 2012, Loughborough have made it to the medal matches in 2010, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019 finishing in second place on three occaisions and in third place once, making BUTC our most sucessful student competition.
External Competitions
As well as competing in university competitions, LSAC regularly compete in external shoots throughout the East Midlands area. We also have a number of members who regularly shoot for the Leicestershire and Rutland County Team. For a full list of external competitions being entered by the club, see the Calendar Page.
Competition Shooting
When you go to a competition you will be given a target number of the form “Number” “Letter” e.g. 3B. The number will refer to which boss you should aim at. The letter tells you which detail you are shooting in and whether you are shooting at the left or right hand target. A & B are detail 1 and shoot first; C & D are detail 2 and shoot second. In a Portsmouth round (the most common indoor round) A & C shoot on the left face; B & D shoot on the right.
Archer C is known as the target captain and writes down the scores for archers A, B and D. Archer D is known as the target lieutenant and writes down C’s score. You never score your own arrows in a competition. In an indoor competition you generally shoot arrows in ends of three in the following manner; A and B shoot 3 arrows and retire, C and D then shoot 3 arrows, you then go and score your arrows. In the next end C and D shoot first.
Scoring
Do not touch the target face or any of the arrows until they have been scored. Archer C is the target captain and will record the scores on the score sheet. When the target captain calls your name, call your score in the order of highest to lowest, for example “9, 6, 5”. If you had an arrow that didn’t score, call a “miss” and it will be recorded with an “M” on the score sheet.
If an arrow is touching a line then it scores the higher value. If you are unsure or if it is not obvious call the higher score but draw the attention of others to it and let them decide. If other people on your target disagree over the value of an arrow call a judge, his word is final. If a score has been written down incorrectly then only a judge can change the mistake, which he will do in red pen. While others are calling their scores check that what they are calling is correct, it is very easy to make a mistake when calling arrows so feel free to correct them. At the end of a shoot, remember to sign your score sheet and always thank your target captain.