Success in their Sights | Eoin O’Mahony

Despite being only two and a half years old, UCC Archery Club celebrates its third hosting of the National Student Indoor Championships (NSIC) on Saturday in Nemo Rangers GAA club.The NSIC is a competition separate from the Intervarsity League which has become Ireland’s biggest student archery event, drawing over 100 archers from around the country last year. In 2010 the competition was run by a committee that was comprised of archers with only 6 months experience (aside from club founder David Leen).Since then, the committee has changed considerably to become a group of formidable archers in competition, with some going on to become qualified coaches for the club. Now, instead of relying on equipment and coaches from other clubs, we have enough gear to handle the massive amounts of beginner archers attending weekly training. This year’s first beginner training session saw 200 people come to shoot, a big jump up from the 15 people at the very first UCC Archery session back in 2010. With this in mind, the club will fancy its chances at the Championships.The squad has shown impressive form recently. Club Captain Katie Hamilton’s most recent success was on the 17th of February, winning gold in the advanced recurve category at the National Barebow Championships in Galway. At this event our beginners showed their talent, knocking out more experienced archers and competing against each other for 1st and 2nd places; Shane Lordan was narrowly defeated on the day by Arthur O’Regan.  Andrew Egan, who has shown excellence throughout the year, was unlucky to be knocked out in the quarter final of the compound category. In the main event of the day, Aoife Warren came 3rd in Barebow Championships. The day before saw David Leen, Katie Hamilton and James Daly all placing in their respective disciplines.The club celebrated gaining full club status this year. A well-established flow to running the club has led to the social side of the club being developed, with a variety of events having been held thus far. A Valentine’s Day shoot was held in conjunction with Sláinte to raise money for R&G week charities as well as collaborating with FilmSoc to run an archery movie night. Other events included a table quiz, the Medicine Decathlon and an in-house competition – The Indoor Left Handed Championship!Before Christmas, UCC Archery took part in the Sports Ability Day 2012. Held in the Mardyke, it was a day to showcase sports that people of all capabilities can participate in. In partnership with Cork City Archery Club, we stayed for the full afternoon due to the high level of interest and enjoyment of everyone who tried archery for the first time.The club is currently busily preparing for the NSIC. As with any sport, home soil is always a great advantage (i.e. not getting up at 6am to drive up the country) and a rake of medals are expected; but at the very least, it will once again be the largest student archery competition in Ireland.