Great Britain Archery Team at the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games
London will be the scene of the Summer Olympic Games for the third time in 2012 and the expectations from the British archers are very high. The last Olympic medal in archery was won at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics by Alison Williamson who took bronze medal in the women’s individual. Male archers, however, did not win an Olympic medal since 1992.
British public still remembers the 1908 Olympics and the success of the British archers who won as many as 5 out of 6 medals available which is more than in nearly four decades since the beginning of the modern archery at the Olympics in 1972. The GB archery team for the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games is strong but unfortunately, it is not realistic to expect from them to repeat the success of William Dod, Reginald Brooks-King, Queenie Newall, Lottie Dod and Beatrice Hill-Lowe from 1908 because the competition is very high. However, it is not unrealistic to expect another Olympic medal in archery.
Great Britain’s archers who are thought to have the greatest chance to win a medal at the 2012 London Olympics are Simon Terry, Alison Williamson and Mark Nesbitt. Both Simon Terry and Alison Williamson had already proven that they belong among the very best archers in the world and won three bronze Olympic medals – Simon Terry won bronze in the men’s individual and the teams together with Steven Hallard and Richard Priestman at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games, while Alison Williamson won bronze in 2004 in Athens. North Irish archer Mark Nesbitt is one of the youngest members of the GB team but despite his youth, he is believed to be a serious competitor for an Olympic medal despite the fact that he did not managed to shoot himself among the medal winners at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010.
Other archers who will compete for Great Britain at the 2012 London Olympics are Charlotte Burges, Naomi Folkard, Alan Wills and Larry Godfrey who will probably compete with Alison Williamson and Simon Terry, respectively, for the team medals. As the host of the Olympic Games, Great Britain has a right to send three archers per gender which is the maximum athletes allowed to compete for a single country.
Winning an Olympic medal in London will not be easy despite the fact that the British archers will have an advantage of home soil and have participated in intensive sports strength and conditioning courses for the past few weeks. However, two members of the GB archery team have already proven that they got what it takes to win a medal. But Great Britain will also be represented by four more archers who have the potential to surprise as well. The first event will take place at the Lord’s Cricket Ground on 27 July (male individual) sponsered by Golf Support, while the “battle” for the medals will be fought at the same venue on 2 and 3 August.