“Believe in yourself, work hard and don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done,” says young Lisburn City Club archer Claudia
Lisburn girl and Hunterhouse College student Claudia Bloxham is certainly shooting for the stars in her sport, archery. Claudia only took up the sport four years ago when she was 10 years old.
A determined and focussed competitor, coaches have described her as ‘extremely coachable, an athlete who follows instructions, listens to advice, implements it and understands what she is doing and why.’
Claudia has a true passion for her archery discipline, target archery using recurve bows which is the category currently used at Olympic level. (Compound has recently been added to the Olympics programme and will feature for the first time at LA 2028.)
Claudia was first introduced to the sport during a Killowen Primary School P6 field trip to Lorne House near Holywood where archery was one of the ‘give it a try’ activities.
“When I first picked up a bow, I felt nervous yet excited and I really enjoyed the experience so when I got home, I told my parents all about it and couldn’t stop thinking about how much I’d loved it,” explains Claudia.
Fortuitously a week later a flier dropped through her door from local archery club, Lisburn City, promoting a ‘Try Archery’ day to which Claudia and her dad Allen signed up for. That led to both completing a beginners archery course and four years later Claudia competes for Lisburn City Archery Club whilst Dad Allen has taken up a role in judging.
“Archery is very much a shared hobby for me and my dad, who shot at novice and club level before he moved across to shoots judging.
“Both my parents are very supportive. Daddy oversees my archery taking me to shoots and to our club while mum ensures that my schoolwork and exam revision is completed giving me a good school/archery balance.”
Allen explains, “It’s a funny story how I got involved in judging. I’d challenged Claudia to a 72-hour shoot-off jokingly promising her cash prizes if she beat me by 20 or 30 points. Well, Claudia thumped me by 100 points, so I decided to move into judging, but am of course one of Claudia’s biggest supporters alongside my wife Alison and Claudia’s eight-year-old brother Joel.”
Lisburn girl and Hunterhouse College student Claudia Bloxham is certainly shooting for the stars in her sport, archery. Claudia only took up the sport four years ago when she was 10 years old.
A determined and focussed competitor, coaches have described her as ‘extremely coachable, an athlete who follows instructions, listens to advice, implements it and understands what she is doing and why.’
Claudia has a true passion for her archery discipline, target archery using recurve bows which is the category currently used at Olympic level. (Compound has recently been added to the Olympics programme and will feature for the first time at LA 2028.)
Claudia was first introduced to the sport during a Killowen Primary School P6 field trip to Lorne House near Holywood where archery was one of the ‘give it a try’ activities.
“When I first picked up a bow, I felt nervous yet excited and I really enjoyed the experience so when I got home, I told my parents all about it and couldn’t stop thinking about how much I’d loved it,” explains Claudia.
Fortuitously a week later a flier dropped through her door from local archery club, Lisburn City, promoting a ‘Try Archery’ day to which Claudia and her dad Allen signed up for. That led to both completing a beginners archery course and four years later Claudia competes for Lisburn City Archery Club whilst Dad Allen has taken up a role in judging.
“Archery is very much a shared hobby for me and my dad, who shot at novice and club level before he moved across to shoots judging.
“Both my parents are very supportive. Daddy oversees my archery taking me to shoots and to our club while mum ensures that my schoolwork and exam revision is completed giving me a good school/archery balance.”
Allen explains, “It’s a funny story how I got involved in judging. I’d challenged Claudia to a 72-hour shoot-off jokingly promising her cash prizes if she beat me by 20 or 30 points. Well, Claudia thumped me by 100 points, so I decided to move into judging, but am of course one of Claudia’s biggest supporters alongside my wife Alison and Claudia’s eight-year-old brother Joel.”
The current focus alongside schoolwork for Claudia is to move onto the GB Conversion programme through GB Archery. Currently part of the governing body’s development programme Claudia travels to Archery GB’s centre of excellence in Lilleshall, Shropshire for competitions and training over seven times a year.
Next on the horizon is the 2026 Youth Festival in August which will see over 170 young competitors (U12s to U21s) from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland taking part. It will be Claudia’s third Youth Festival and last year she secured a Team silver. Due to her age Claudia can only shoot from 40 metres, but after the Youth Festival coaches can move her on to 60 metre shoots enabling Claudia to reach the scores criteria needed to join the GB Conversion squad. Both she and her dad Allen reckon that goal is at least a year down the line.
“I’m hugely excited to shoot at 60 metres as I’m really keen to move on – I just can’t wait.”
This year (2026) Claudia became a Mary Peters Trust and the Trust’s funding support has been vital in helping her travel to GB competitions and development sessions.
Thanking the Trust Claudia says, “We couldn’t have done all the travelling and attended events in England without help from the Mary Peters Trust. I consider it a great honour to be a Mary Peters Trust athlete as archery is not a big sport in Northern Ireland. I will always be grateful for the opportunity.
“I’m looking forward to personally meeting Lady Mary – I’ve heard a lot from my friend as her primary school was lucky enough to receive a visit from Lady Mary. My dad tells me that he remembers Mary’s gym in Lisburn.
“To be successful you need to believe in yourself, work hard and never let anyone tell you it can’t be done. And that’s what Mary did in achieving her Olympic Gold medal.”
In Olympics history archery was included in the events programme from 1900 up to 1920 and was in fact one of the first sports to feature women’s events in 1904. Archery was eventually dropped and then rejoined in 1972; the year Mary Peters took gold in the pentathlon at the Munich Games.
“My dream is that one day I will represent Team GB&NI in an Olympics. That really drives me, trying to improve my form and technique and I hope that one day I can shoot alongside my archery hero Penny Healey.
“I’ve met Penny several times. She is a Team GB Olympian and is such a lovely cool girl and she’s given me some great advice such as to relax into competitions and don’t let them stress you. She is very good with people and is on a level with everyone. Like me, Penny started archery when she was 10 years old and is a huge inspiration for me.”
Currently (in 2026) number 8 in the world, Penny Healey competed for GB in the 2024 Paris Olympics and is a World, European and National record holder and medallist – and is still only 21.
Realistically for Claudia, Brisbane 2032 could be an Olympic goal and by then Claudia would be aged 20 – very young in sporting terms.
“Most of the GB archery Olympians get a commemorative tattoo of the iconic Olympic rings and if I get to join the Olympic team, I’m definitely getting a tattoo – and mum and dad are backing me on that!”
Before the 2032 Olympics comes the Commonwealth Games in 2030 and they are due to be held in India. It’s a country that excels in archery therefore the sport is almost certain to be included in the programme line-up.
Outlining what she is most proud of to date Claudia lists winning a silver medal in the Teams U15 event at the 2025 Youth festival, as well as a silver in the national indoors 2025 U15 championships and a bronze in the first leg of the Junior Archery series.
“My National Indoors Silver in 2025 was my first individual medal at National U15s level and it was a hard-fought contest.”
And if things don’t go to plan Claudia has already learned to focus only on what she can control. “When something goes wrong, I’ve learned that it’s not always my fault and some things are out of my control. During last year’s Youth Festival Silver match, just as I had let my shot go, a gust of wind threw my arrow off course into the ‘5’ so I reset for my second arrow which went into the ‘10’ and this taught me concentrate on the controllables.”
The good news is, that for any young people wanting to follow in the footsteps of athletes like Claudia, archery locally is expanding and pushing forward. As Lisa Wheeler, NI Regional Development Officer for Archery GB explains:
“Four years ago, there were 330 Archery GB members in Northern Ireland and now in 2026 there are 700. We’re delighted that 50% of our members are Under 21s and in that junior bracket there are actually more females than males.
“An Archery NI Schools Cup took place in March 2026 hosted by Bangor & District Archery Club and the club went on to be shortlisted in the 2026 Belfast Telegraph Sports Awards. Claudia was one of 109 archers from 40 schools throughout Northern Ireland taking part in the school tournament. It’s very promising for the future of the sport here.”
In Northern Ireland there are different pathways and options, and local athletes can also be part of Archery Ireland and indeed many are members of both it and Archery GB.
In addition to working hard at her sport Claudia is a Year 10 pupil at Hunterhouse College in Lisburn and is in the process of choosing GCSEs for academic year 2026/27.
“Job wise in the future I would love to work within the engineering industry or in architecture. Whilst my school doesn’t have an archery club at the moment, they are incredibly supportive and proud of my achievements in archery.”
Playing at and competing for Lisburn City Archery Club, Claudia is also part of the Northern Ireland Performance Academy and is trained by NIPA coach Damien Lennon and Lisburn City coaches Jennifer McCormick and Hazel Campbell.
“My coaches are very supportive. Damien, Jennifer and Hazel take time to watch me and are not afraid to tell me key areas for improvement.
“I would so love to make my family and coaches proud by ultimately competing in a future Commonwealths and Olympic Games but for now I’m really enjoying the journey.”
The current focus alongside schoolwork for Claudia is to move onto the GB Conversion programme through GB Archery. Currently part of the governing body’s development programme Claudia travels to Archery GB’s centre of excellence in Lilleshall, Shropshire for competitions and training over seven times a year.
Next on the horizon is the 2026 Youth Festival in August which will see over 170 young competitors (U12s to U21s) from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland taking part. It will be Claudia’s third Youth Festival and last year she secured a Team silver. Due to her age Claudia can only shoot from 40 metres, but after the Youth Festival coaches can move her on to 60 metre shoots enabling Claudia to reach the scores criteria needed to join the GB Conversion squad. Both she and her dad Allen reckon that goal is at least a year down the line.
“I’m hugely excited to shoot at 60 metres as I’m really keen to move on – I just can’t wait.”
This year (2026) Claudia became a Mary Peters Trust and the Trust’s funding support has been vital in helping her travel to GB competitions and development sessions.
Thanking the Trust Claudia says, “We couldn’t have done all the travelling and attended events in England without help from the Mary Peters Trust. I consider it a great honour to be a Mary Peters Trust athlete as archery is not a big sport in Northern Ireland. I will always be grateful for the opportunity.
“I’m looking forward to personally meeting Lady Mary – I’ve heard a lot from my friend as her primary school was lucky enough to receive a visit from Lady Mary. My dad tells me that he remembers Mary’s gym in Lisburn.
“To be successful you need to believe in yourself, work hard and never let anyone tell you it can’t be done. And that’s what Mary did in achieving her Olympic Gold medal.”
In Olympics history archery was included in the events programme from 1900 up to 1920 and was in fact one of the first sports to feature women’s events in 1904. Archery was eventually dropped and then rejoined in 1972; the year Mary Peters took gold in the pentathlon at the Munich Games.
“My dream is that one day I will represent Team GB&NI in an Olympics. That really drives me, trying to improve my form and technique and I hope that one day I can shoot alongside my archery hero Penny Healey.
“I’ve met Penny several times. She is a Team GB Olympian and is such a lovely cool girl and she’s given me some great advice such as to relax into competitions and don’t let them stress you. She is very good with people and is on a level with everyone. Like me, Penny started archery when she was 10 years old and is a huge inspiration for me.”
Currently (in 2026) number 8 in the world, Penny Healey competed for GB in the 2024 Paris Olympics and is a World, European and National record holder and medallist – and is still only 21.
Realistically for Claudia, Brisbane 2032 could be an Olympic goal and by then Claudia would be aged 20 – very young in sporting terms.
“Most of the GB archery Olympians get a commemorative tattoo of the iconic Olympic rings and if I get to join the Olympic team, I’m definitely getting a tattoo – and mum and dad are backing me on that!”
Before the 2032 Olympics comes the Commonwealth Games in 2030 and they are due to be held in India. It’s a country that excels in archery therefore the sport is almost certain to be included in the programme line-up.
Outlining what she is most proud of to date Claudia lists winning a silver medal in the Teams U15 event at the 2025 Youth festival, as well as a silver in the national indoors 2025 U15 championships and a bronze in the first leg of the Junior Archery series.
“My National Indoors Silver in 2025 was my first individual medal at National U15s level and it was a hard-fought contest.”
And if things don’t go to plan Claudia has already learned to focus only on what she can control. “When something goes wrong, I’ve learned that it’s not always my fault and some things are out of my control. During last year’s Youth Festival Silver match, just as I had let my shot go, a gust of wind threw my arrow off course into the ‘5’ so I reset for my second arrow which went into the ‘10’ and this taught me concentrate on the controllables.”
The good news is, that for any young people wanting to follow in the footsteps of athletes like Claudia, archery locally is expanding and pushing forward. As Lisa Wheeler, NI Regional Development Officer for Archery GB explains:
“Four years ago, there were 330 Archery GB members in Northern Ireland and now in 2026 there are 700. We’re delighted that 50% of our members are Under 21s and in that junior bracket there are actually more females than males.
“An Archery NI Schools Cup took place in March 2026 hosted by Bangor & District Archery Club and the club went on to be shortlisted in the 2026 Belfast Telegraph Sports Awards. Claudia was one of 109 archers from 40 schools throughout Northern Ireland taking part in the school tournament. It’s very promising for the future of the sport here.”
In Northern Ireland there are different pathways and options, and local athletes can also be part of Archery Ireland and indeed many are members of both it and Archery GB.
In addition to working hard at her sport Claudia is a Year 10 pupil at Hunterhouse College in Lisburn and is in the process of choosing GCSEs for academic year 2026/27.
“Job wise in the future I would love to work within the engineering industry or in architecture. Whilst my school doesn’t have an archery club at the moment, they are incredibly supportive and proud of my achievements in archery.”
Playing at and competing for Lisburn City Archery Club, Claudia is also part of the Northern Ireland Performance Academy and is trained by NIPA coach Damien Lennon and Lisburn City coaches Jennifer McCormick and Hazel Campbell.
“My coaches are very supportive. Damien, Jennifer and Hazel take time to watch me and are not afraid to tell me key areas for improvement.
“I would so love to make my family and coaches proud by ultimately competing in a future Commonwealths and Olympic Games but for now I’m really enjoying the journey.”
