WILTSHIRE archer Mark Rudd will represent Great Britain for the first time at the first leg of the 2014 Archery World Cup in China next week.

Rudd, from Beechingstoke near Pewsey and a member Devizes Bowmen will shoot for his country in the compound event in Shanghai at the competition, which gets under way on Tuesday.

Thirteen British archers have been selected to compete at the first stage of the World Cup with seven female and six male bowmen selected from both recurve – the Olympic discipline – and compound categories.

They will compete on both an individual and team basis, with one team for each discipline, male and female and a mixed team competition.

Naomi Folkard, Amy Oliver and Larry Godfrey, who all represented Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics will be joined by Nicky Hunt, who won two gold medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the compound discipline and rookies Sean Evans and Bradley Denny.

England archer Rudd joins Linda Townsend as a first time Great Britain archer, competing in the compound discipline alongside Duncan Busby, Adam Ravenscroft, Claudine Jennings and Lucy O’Sullivan.

Following the qualification round, the archers will compete in a head-to-head event, run in the same format as the Olympics and Paralympics, with a 70m target for the recurve archers and a 50m target for the compound archers.

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