Australian classification of archers including longbow archers

I have noticed that FITA does not recognise longbows as an individual bow style for Outdoor Target Archery. Rule 9.3.1.4, relating to "Longbow divisions", is in Book 4, Chapter 9, "Field Archery", but, in the FITA Rule Book 2, "Outdoor Target Archery", there is no mention of longbows in their own right, as a class or division of bow. There is Recurve (7.3.1), Standard Bow (7.3.2), Compound (7.3.3), and that is it. NO LONGBOWS for Outdoor Target Archery.

So, apparently, it is left up to individual countries, to define longbows for Outdoor Target Archery, and, to design and implement their own rules and classifications, relating to longbow archery in Outdoor Target Archery. This results in a lack of international standardisation of rules and classifications, applying to longbow archery in Outdoor Target Archery.

The classification rules and data, included below, unless otherwise stated, are from the Archery Australia Shooting Rules – Chapter 4 - Records, Classifications, Ratings and Handicaps, as amended 01/07/2005. For more information, see that document, on the Archery Australia web site.

There are five classes of archer:

1. Grand Master Bowman

2. Master Bowman

3. First Class Archer

4. Second Class Archer

5. Third Class Archer.

(Note: The British archery Society, the Grand National Archery Society, in 1995, added a sixth class, between First Class Archer and Master Bowman; the class of Bowman – source - http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~ajcd/archery/awards/class.html )

The awards of Third Class, Second Class, and First Class Archers, are awarded once upon gaining the qualification. The awards of Master Bowman and Grand Master Bowman, are required to be renewed, each calendar year.

The following, unless otherwise stated, applies to the qualifications of First Class and lower.

The awards are awarded by the archer's club, after the archer has attained the required score level, for three rounds in a calendar year.

An archer may lose a qualification, if the archer does not shoot a single round at the qualification level, within a year of the last qualifying round.

The qualification rounds to achieve a classification, require at least 30 arrows to be shot at the distances shown below, and be rounds consisting of 72 arrows or more.

As I am interested primarily in longbow archery, and I believe that a lack of support for longbow archers, exists, and it would take lots more material to provide the information for all of the bow styles, I am including only the classification information relating to longbow archers.

Note: the rounds listed below are metric rounds. Note also that the target faces are 122cm, except where the number of arrows for a distance, is followed by an asterisk (*), which indicates an 80cm target face, or where the target face is otherwise stated. Both target faces, are 10 zone (scoring circles 1-10) targets.

The distances in the table below, are in metres.

Note: no distances are specified for 3^rd Class.

The table below, lists the rating indices for the classification awards.

Now, for simplicity, I include a subset of the available rounds for classification, including only ends at multiples of 10 metres.

The numbers in the table cells, are the number of arrows to be shot at the distance, unless otherwise specified.

Now, the ratings table for each round – the numbers in the cells below the column headings, are the scores required for the round, to get the rating.

Classification arrow scores requirement for adults, 1^st class and below

For the single distance rounds, for an adult male, the arrow scores required for the classifications, averages rounded up to two significant figures, are:

For the single distance rounds, for an adult female, the arrow scores required for the classifications, averages rounded up to two significant figures, are:

For double distance rounds, for an adult, the total arrow scores are included in the following table. 72 arrows are shot for each round, 36 arrows for each distance, Total possible score is 720.

For triple distance rounds, for an adult, the total arrow scores are included in the following table. 90 arrows are shot for each round, 30 arrows for each distance. Target sizes are 122cm.

For quadruple (4) distance rounds involving 30 arrows per distance, for an adult, the total arrow scores are included in the following table. Total possible score is 1200 (120 arrows).

For quadruple (4) distance rounds involving 36 arrows per distance, for an adult, the total arrow scores are included in the following table. Total possible score is 1440 (144 arrows).

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This web page was last updated on 30 June, 2006