Olympic archers - coming to Lord's

Date released: 11 August 2008

The Great Britain & Northern Ireland's archery teams narrowly missed out on team medals in Beijing. In 2012 they'll be competing in the Olympics at Lord's.

GB archer, Alison Williamson The women's team of Alison Williamson, Naomi Folkard and Charlotte Burgess made a skillful charge towards the medals.

They were narrowly defeated in the semi-finals by the hosts, China and then lost out to France in the bronze-medal shoot-off. The tears of the team said how close they'd come.

The men's team (Simon Terry, Alan Wills and Laurence Godfrey) were unfortunate enough to face the men's host team early on.

Edged out by just four points (214 to 210) they were knocked out of the competition.

Chances to come

There are still the individual events, with those events coming to the crunch on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 August.

All at MCC will be wishing them lots of luck.

Any medals they win will be defended in 2012, when London hosts the Olympic Games - with the archery events at Lord's.

Little arrow: Freddie Keenan (right) at Lord's in 2007 Spectators who came to the England v India Test Match in 2007 may have seen a future British medalist already.

Freddie Keenan is the archery equivalent of diving sensation, Tom Daley. His unerring accuracy in an archery demonstration during the India Test surprised and impressed many amongst the crowd.

The Beijing Games are now well underway but the clock is ticking, counting down to London 2012.