A NEWNHAM teenager has been selected to shoot for Great Britain at the European Youth Archery Championships in Rome. Ava Snell will be part of the U18 Women’s Recurve team for the championships next week.

The 15-year-old and her identical twin, Amber, are both gifted archers who started with a taster session at Newnham Primary School when they were eight. Ava’s mum Zoe has now set up a GoFundMe to help with the costs of competing in Rome.

Both girls, are members of Newnham Archery Club, were named “Global Child Prodigies” in the sport last year. They have broken more than a dozen national records and have multiple medals to their names.

Ava and Amber were spotted by double archery Olympian Patrick Huston at Cheltenham and he offered coaching. They made the transition to Olympic recurve – where the bow has sights and stabilisers – from “bare” bow in 2023.

Mrs Snell said: “Amber loves her fields (archery) but we always knew Ava was more of a target archer.”

They were accepted onto the age group pathway last November which means regular trips to the national performance centre in Telford, Shropshire. Ava qualified to go to Rome as one of the top three finishers at a competition held at Deer Park Archers in Cheltenham in May having only recently stepped up to the 60m distance.

Mrs Snell added: “There was a lot of pressure because only threewould be selected for Rome and she qualified third.

“She stepped into the 60m distance this year and blitzed it and she’s currently second in the junior series.”

Ava recently competed in junior outoor championships, winning silver after coming second on both days.

Her proud mum said: “To get silver over both days when she had a bit of a head cold was amazing. The focus is now back to training ready for Rome. We fly out on Sunday, and the competition starts on Tuesday.

“They get practice on the Monday, and then the competition starts on the Tuesday. When we come back from Rome, you’ve got five days of recovery and preparation, and then it's the shoot for the Youth Olympics in Dakar.

“They are only taking one female and on male athlete and there are going to be six of them battling for that one spot.”

Training is every Wednesday and Thursday with competitions usually on Saturday and Sunday or if there are no competitions there is more training. Ava and her mum travelled to Ashington near Newcastle last Saturday for a competition where she earned a battling sixth place because of equipment.

Ava and Amber are on the Elite Performance Pathway at their school and they are “Flare” athletes at Freedom Leisure. Being a Flare athlete means they get of Freedom Leisure Centres facilities and being on the Elite Perfomance Pathway gives them gym work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.The aim is qualification for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

To support Ava’s journey, visit www.gofundme.com and search for Ava Snell.