It was a successful week for GB archers at the European Championships in Essen, Germany as they came away with individual gold and team silver medals.

Compound archer, Ella Gibson was victorious, taking home her first outdoor European individual title, while recurve archers, Bryony Pitman and Conor Hall, took home silver in the mixed team competition.

It was a tough fight for Ella through her qualifying matches where she came up against, and beat, teammate, Layla Annison. She headed into the finals where she faced fifth ranked Elisa Roner from Italy. The two battled it out through five ends but they couldn’t be separated so headed into a one arrow shoot-off. Ella shot first, sending her arrow into the ten, which Roner’s nine couldn’t contend with.

Ella said: “All that was going through my mind was that if I was going down then I would go down giving it my everything, not being careful or cautious. It’s my first outdoor European individual title, it meant a lot. Especially as my first individual outdoor senior medal was actually a silver at the Europeans in 2021, so it feels like a full circle, except that I won this one. I remember how nervous and hard I found that final and how different I am now with so much more experience.”
In the recurve competition, Bryony Pitman and Conor Hall came together as a mixed team; their first time shooting as a pair since they became the European Field mixed team champions in 2021.

They shot their way through to the gold final against the home team of Florian Unruh and Katharina Bauer. After four ends of very closely scored arrows from both teams, Germany took the title on home soil with a score of 6-2, meaning GB took silver. This is the GB recurve team’s first European mixed team medal since Charlotte Burgess and the late Simon Terry won Bronze in 2010.

Bryony said: “Throughout all the matches I think we had each other’s backs and shot really well together. It was just nice to be on a finals stage together. We trusted each other, went and enjoyed it, and made the most of the experience.”

With thanks to Archery GB