YEAR 13 student Joe Fairburn, from Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley, won a bronze medal in the Junior Men’s Recurve category at the European Field Archery Championship in Slovenia.
This has been the culmination of 12 months of qualification tournaments throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland in order to qualify. His medal also means automatic qualification for next year’s World Field Archery Championship in Yankton in the USA.
Shooting for Archery GB, Fairburn won his bronze medal match with a score of 54-49 against Lovro Cerni of Croatia.
Fairburn competes in both target and field archery and has been national champion in both.
In Field Archery, Fairburn is the No 1 junior male field archer in the UK, 2019 Junior National Field Archery champion (World Archery) and has achieved numerous national records, as well as winning Young Sportsman of the Year at the Leeds Sports Awards in 2018.
Prince Henry's PE teacher Dean Hyan said: “This is another fantastic achievement for Joe. It is brilliant watching the students on our Excellence in Sport and Education programme reaching their full potential and we have high hopes for Joe in international competition.
“He had to overcome various technical issues in the months leading up to the Championships, and has shown great grit and determination to achieve such a brilliant result. We will watch the World Championships with great interest.”
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