Archery GB is celebrating a week of international successes for several of its athletes at the European Games in Krakow, Poland.
18-year-old Penny Healey returns from the competition with two gold medals, having won the individual women’s recurve and the team recurve women’s competition alongside Bryony Pitman and Jaspreet Sagoo.
Penny has also earned GB an individual recurve women’s quota spot for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The world number two archer shot some astounding matches on her route through to the finals in Krakow, Poland. Her form did not falter in the gold final against Spain’s Elia Canales, eventually winning the match 6-2 and being crowned the European Games champion for 2023.
After her win, Penny shared her feelings on the week’s competition, saying, “It was not easy – I think there was a lot of nerves there and also it’s never easy to play up against an awesome opponent and a friend as well. This week I think everyone’s done really well and we’ve all shot to the best that we could.”
She went on to share her pride in earning GB’s recurve women’s quota spot for Paris 2024, “I feel great, my nan, unfortunately, passed away before I came out here so I said to my mum that I’d get the quota spots for her and that I’d win for her and I’ve done that. This gold medal means a lot, I’d said I wanted to do my nan proud, and I have so I’m really happy to do that.”
Women’s compound world number one Ella Gibson also ended her week at the competition with success shooting to a silver medal in the individual competition.
After ranking in 1st place and securing a new world record of 715 points during qualifying, Ella earned herself a bye straight through to the quarterfinals to face Dutch archer Sanne de Laat. A neck and neck between the two eventually ended with Ella securing a one-point lead to win, 143-142.
She then secured victory against Turkish archer Hazal Burun in the semi-finals to face Eliza Roner from Italy in the gold medal match. The pair battled against tricky wind conditions in the final, with Ella eventually being beaten by the Italian athlete and being awarded the silver medal.
Speaking after the final about her silver medal win, Ella said “For sure, I mean coming out and winning a medal is always what you want and it’s great to be able to come to my first European Games and do that. Obviously, I’m a little bit frustrated with how the final went and of course not winning gold, but there will be many more opportunities and I know I’ll be on the finals field again.”
For more information on Archery GB and its performance teams, please visit archerygb.org.
