King of Shaves is delighted to announce its sponsorship of young archery star Beverley Stevens.Berverley is aged 16 and is from Eastbourne. In her chosen sport of archery her achievements to date include:
Member of GB team and on 2012 Olympic Plan.
Team Bronze at Outdoor European Championships, 2006.
See more updates and news from Beverley below.
Update: 19 September 2007 from BeverleyThis year has been a hard year for me because the Great Britain coach changed my shooting technique.
During the year I went to many competitions and excelled at Clophill Fita Fest and at Lincoln Fita Star. At these competitions I entered as a senior even though I am a junior to see how good I was compared to the seniors around the country. On the first day at Clophill I ended up going into the bronze medal match and then winning the bronze medal. This I was really happy about because there was a lot of senior ladies shooting and I managed to get 3rd place.
At Lincoln Fita Star I shot again as a senior lady and I shot a Personal Best of 1189 out of 1440. This was shooting 3 dozen arrows at 70 metres, 60 metres, 50 metres and 30 metres. I won a trophy shield called ‘The Simon Terry Trophy’ (Simon Terry got bronze at the Barcelona Olympics) for being the highest scoring junior lady shooting the senior round. Also as I was shooting as a senior, I ranked 2nd out of all the senior ladies and won the 2nd place trophy.
I also went to the Southern County Archery Society championships (SCAS) and here I came 1st place and went away with the SCAS trophy.
I went to the Intercounties to represents Sussex along with fellow Sussex teammates and Sussex won the competition. I was the highest scoring archer from Sussex so I am ranked 1st in Sussex.
I haven’t seen the GB coach since the beginning of the year as he has been abroad with the GB senior team and also his home country of Korea. It has been hard to get any coaching has all the coaches live far away such as the South West, East Midlands etc. I am only in contact with them all my email, which is ok for some things but for technical and style improvement it is hard, as I have to do it on my own without the help of a proper coach.
The new session is about to start in the archery world and GB junior squads are starting up again. The first one is on the weekend beginning Friday 7th September. I will be attending this squad as I need the help from the coaches and so that I can progress on in my shooting.
Update May 2007 from Beverley
I started archery at the age of 12. I got into archery because of my younger brother. He was told at a craft fair that he had a special talent and that he would become a good archer. We then found an archery club that was having an open day; so we went down and he joined there and then. At first I was too shy and didn’t want to do it but when I went to pick up my brother from his second training session an archery member let me have a go when everyone had gone and I really enjoyed it. I then joined the club.
Later that year I won my first competition at a junior event. This was a great time as it was the first ever sport I had done and actually won in a competition!
In 2002 my brother and I represented my club as Gonfalon carriers at the Junior World Championships, which was held in England. This was a great experience as I got to watch the best in the world shoot, and got to meet some of the competitors and soak up the atmosphere.
The following year I went to my first-ever national competition for some fun and see how I would rank in the country. This was held in July at the National Sports Centre in Lilleshall. I was quite nervous but excited at the same time. This was the first time that I actually realised I was good! I came 2nd on the first day and won on the second day with a bigger entry.
Now knowing that I had a natural talent I started going to big tournaments and competing at a high level. In November 2005 I decided to enter for the GB squad and I had to fill in a 12 page application form to see if I was good enough to get to the assessment day where they could see how I shot and how fit I was. They decided to choose me along with others and formed us into a new squad. From then on there were squad training weekends every month during the winter that I had to attend.
In 2006 I was invited to my first ever selection shoot to go abroad with the GB team. I had to go along and shoot to the best of my ability and then shoot head to head against other girls of my age group and discipline. I won all my head to heads, which felt amazing, which put me in good stead for being selected. At the end of the shoot we had to wait around for the head coach to decide whom he was going to take. To my surprise he chose me and one other girl in my discipline. This was both our first ever trip aboard and it was the European Indoors in Jaen, Spain. We were so excited that we were laughing most of the time plus we were going away with the seniors!
Spain was an eventful trip as I managed to fall down some stairs in the hotel and seriously sprain my ankle, which ended up with me going to hospital to see if I had fractured it! Luckily I hadn’t and could carry on and shoot in the competition. Unfortunately I came last in the junior ladies category but I did have a disadvantage, as I couldn’t stand up properly on my ankle.
Later that year I went to another selection shoot for the Junior Europa Cup in Wyhl, Germany. I did well and got selected to go which was great as it was the first trip away with just juniors and I could make new friends. Germany was a good trip and I ended up in 34th place.
Again later that year I was selected to go on another International trip this time to Prague, Czech Republic. This was the second leg of the Junior Europa Cup. This was another good trip as I got see all my mates that I had met in Germany. I ended up in 30th place. Also there was a team event and I was in a team with 2 girls of the same discipline and age group from my country and we ended up in 3rd place winning the bronze medal. This was my first time winning a medal.
In October I went to the Junior World Championships in Merida, Mexico. This was completely different to the other trips, as we had to acclimatize to the extreme weather conditions. I had never shot in such hot conditions so it tested my ability. I ended up coming 8th in the world in my category, which felt amazing, and I was the highest ranked girl from Great Britain in my discipline.
P.S: I would like to congratulate John Terry for winning the F.A cup with Chelsea!