Amy Oliver (born 10 July 1987) is an

archer Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

from Great Britain. A competitor at the 2012 Summer Olympics, she won a silver medal at the

2010 Commonwealth Games The 2010 Commonwealth Games (Hindi: 2010 राष्ट्रमण्डल खेल), officially known as the XIX Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Delhi 2010, was an international multi-sport event that was held in Delhi, India, ...

, a bronze medal at the

2011 World Archery Championships The 2011 World Archery Championships was the 46th edition of the event. It was held in Turin, Italy on 2–10 July 2011 and was organized by International Archery Federation (FITA). The event was contested in two different areas. The preliminary ...

, and was the women's individual recurve champion at the World Field Archery Championships in 2016. Oliver announced her retirement from the British national archery team in 2017.

Early and personal life

Amy Oliver was born on 10 July 1987 in

Mexborough Mexborough is a town in the City of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. Situated between Manvers and Denaby Main, it lies on the River Don close to where it joins the River Dearne, and the A6023 road runs through the town. It is contiguo ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...

. She was first introduced to archery at age seven by her parents, who both practised the sport competitively, but it was not until ten years later that Oliver became more involved, joining an archery club and attending training sessions.

Career

Oliver won two medals at the European Field Championships in 2007, the second international competition in which she participated. Having achieved a silver medal in the team event, she later won gold medal in the individual event while wearing her silver medal as motivation. In 2011 she partnered with

Larry Godfrey Laurence Paul Godfrey (born 9 June 1976, in Bristol) is a British archer. He studied for an HND in Mechanical Manufacturing at the University of the West of England from 1997 to 2000. 2004 Summer Olympics Godfrey was the only British male t ...

to win bronze medal in the mixed team event at the

World Archery Championships The World Archery Championships are a series of competitions in Archery organised by the World Archery Federation (WA). The first competition held under that title took place in 1931. Competition archery takes a wide variety of formats, but the ...

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

. In 2016 Oliver won the women's individual recurve title at the World Field Archery Championship in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, defeating Italy's

Jessica Tomasi Jessica Tomasi (born 3 July 1986) is an Italian female archer. At the 2012 Summer Olympics she competed for her country in the Women's team event. References External links * * * * Italian female archers 1986 births Living people O ...

in the final. She announced her retirement from the British national archery team in 2017. As of 2017 she is a member of the Dearne Valley Archery Club.

2010 Commonwealth Games

Oliver participated in the 2010 Commonwealth Games as a member of the England women's recurve archery team. Alongside

Naomi Folkard Naomi Anne Folkard (born 18 September 1983) is a British archer who has represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games five times between 2004 and 2020. She has also represented Great Britain at the World Archery Championships and the Archery Wo ...

and Alison Williamson she reached the final of the women's team recurve event before losing narrowly to the hosts India. Having shot a low score of six with her final arrow of the match, Oliver criticised the conduct of the home crowd as distracting to her preparations for the shot, saying afterwards "I was nervous, the crowd was not good. They were pretty loud and it was not good sportsmanship for archery." The world governing body for archery,

FITA Fita (Ѳ ѳ; italics: ) is a letter of the Early Cyrillic alphabet. The shape and the name of the letter are derived from the Greek letter theta (Θ θ). In the ISO 9 system, Ѳ is romanized using F grave accent (F̀ f̀). In the ...

, later released a statement asking spectators to observe a sense of fair play. ''The Telegraph'' referred to her silver medal as her "biggest disappointment" in a profile published prior to the 2012 Summer Olympics.

2012 Summer Olympics

Oliver made her Olympic debut at the 2012 Summer Olympics in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. She qualified for the British Olympic team after topping the final national selection tournament for archers in April 2012, joining

and Alison Williamson in contesting the women's individual and women's team events. Oliver had a difficult start to the Olympics after suffering technical problems in the preliminary ranking round, entering the elimination rounds of the individual event as the fifty-seventh seed, and combining with Folkard and Williamson to place Great Britain eleventh out of twelve nations for the team event. The results were described by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' as "not encouraging" for the later rounds. Oliver, Folkard, and Williamson were eliminated by Russia in the first round of the team event. Three days later in the opening round of the individual event Oliver delivered a surprise victory over India's

Deepika Kumari Deepika Kumari (born 13 June 1994) is an Indian professional archer. Currently ranked the World No. 2, she competes in the event of archery. She won a gold medal in the 2010 Commonwealth games in the women's individual recurve event. She also w ...

, the world's number one-ranked female archer, despite shooting poorly in the match's second set. Oliver called the win over Kumari, who entered as one of the favourites in the individual competition, as "the highlight of my career" and considered it a greater achievement than her previous medal successes. She would later bow out in the second round to Indonesia's Yuliana Rochmawati.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Oliver, Amy 1987 births Living people English female archers People from Mexborough Sportspeople from Doncaster Archers at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Archers at the 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic archers of Great Britain Archers at the 2015 European Games European Games competitors for Great Britain World Archery Championships medalists Commonwealth Games silver medallists for England Commonwealth Games medallists in archery Competitors at the 2009 World Games