Interesting proposals for changes at World Archery 2021 Congress

ArcheryFox

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I wonder if people have already seen this or not.
I'm surprised I haven't seen it discussed many places yet.

WA have published the motions and proposals for the 2021 WA Congress in Yankton in September:

Highlights include
- Changing 122cm faces to 100cm
- Changing the 720 round to a 60 arrow round
- Compounds scoring 11 for the x both indoors and out
- Updates to the traditional bowstyle
- A discussion (no rules changes yet) on reducing the time to 30s per arrow in target archery.

Was it April I would have happily believed some of these were April fools!
There was some discussion on a recent Easton podcast.

Thought some of you might find these useful to be aware of and interesting to discuss - I open the floor.
 

ArcheryFox

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Whoops, I even tried to check first so no idea how I missed that, sorry 😅.
It does seem under-discussed - I brought them up at our county AGM last night and no-one else was aware of them.

What isn't clear to me is if these are like motions at any normal club AGM - anyone can submit one, however ridiculous, and they are unlikely to pass - or whether publication here is a good indication that they will be passed in September.

They seem quite geared towards World Cup competitions whilst making things more difficult/less fun for the average grassroots archer (well, non-national competitor). I was sad enough when the regular competition was cut from 144 to 72 arrows!

Surprised there isn't more appetite for discussion as these seem fairly significant and hence divisive changes to me.
 

KidCurry

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Shooting barebow it really doesn't affect me except the 60 arrow rule. But it does occur to me it will allow the target to be moved around the boss possibly extending the centre life of the boss by 4x :) Not sure why the drop in arrows to 60. Won't be long before we all turn up at a comp, shoot one arrow after sighters and the nearest to the middle wins, then we can all sit around for an hour while the raffle is drawn and awards presented. Seriously, it's only two more ends to get to 72.
Just heard they are going to reduce the Marathon to 30km as well, so people don't have to run so far, train as much or watch for as long :)

Down side is barebow and recurve will be stopped shooting on the same boss. That will reduce the number of archers we could accommodate on our field if one barebow turns up :(
 
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bimble

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Surprised there isn't more appetite for discussion as these seem fairly significant and hence divisive changes to me.
I guess it depends on who's about, there was some discussion on my FB when I mentioned them there. ;) I suspect go back a decade and there would have been a very lively discussion about these rules on here.

A number of these motions seem to be to get around the fact that WA seem determined to not use Xs to separate archers going into H2H matches. "We want to lower the number of ties on score and nothing else", and then in compound archery suggest rewarding hitting Xs by making them score 11. Why not just use them as tie breaks? They already do for the maxed out (on score) world records, such as the 150 outdoor match and the 30m distance record.

As a friend said when I asked her if she was ready for a 100cm target face at 70m, "well, they can f#*k right off there!"

Not sure why the drop in arrows to 60. Won't be long before we all turn up at a comp, shoot one arrow after sighters and the nearest to the middle wins, then we can all sit around for an hour while the raffle is drawn and awards presented. Seriously, it's only two more ends to get to 72.
Just heard they are going to reduce the Marathon to 30km as well, so people don't have to run so far, train as much or watch for as long :)

Down side is barebow and recurve will be stopped shooting on the same boss. That will reduce the number of archers we could accommodate on our field if one barebow turns up :(
I mean, the barebow 50m round is already in the books, so recurve & barebow don't shoot together at 720s already (though down the club there's nothing saying people can't shoot what they want).

I've seen claims that dropping down to 60 arrows will somehow save a day at international shoots (not sure how dropping 4 doz on the first day saves a full day elsewhere), and that it brings it in line with the indoor rounds which make it easier for non-archers to understand... though as qualifiers aren't watched by non-archers, I've no idea how that's relevant...
 

KidCurry

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I mean, the barebow 50m round is already in the books, so recurve & barebow don't shoot together at 720s already (though down the club there's nothing saying people can't shoot what they want).
Ahh... think I read that wrong.
The 122cm target face shall be used for the distances of 90, 70, 60m (and 50m for Cadet and Master Women) on the 1440 Round and 50m on the Barebow Round.
means WA1440 still uses 122cm faces. It will stop me practicing my 70m 1440 barebow if a 100cm face is on all three of our long range bosses :(
However, the amount of line cutters I see on the world circuit just going to scoring them down would probably solve any apparent problems.
 
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ArcheryFox

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Which just seems to make things excessively complicated - and a need to buy and store separately 2 similar sized large faces.
And clubs to have 2 different sized large faces (plus 80cm) if they are running a 720 event.

As a casual follower of World Cup events I would debate how often a smaller face would have helped.
Especially on the recurve where people don't generally come too close to cleaning and there is usually a reasonably separated order after using 10s and x for resolving ties. As Bimble says, the 11 seems a very long and convoluted way of simply achieving the same result as using the XS.
 

bimble

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means WA1440 still uses 122cm faces. It will stop me practicing my 70m 1440 barebow if a 100cm face is on all three of our long range bosses :(
I mean, recurve archers wanting to shoot 1440s will also have to shoot the 122cm face at 70m, and if your aiming spot is bottom of the gold at 70m, with a 100cm target, that's only a 4cm difference to the centre of the target compared to the 122cm face. So probably not too much difference for an unsighted bow.
 

Corax67

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I am thankful that our club is family based and non-competitive so we can keep on shooting GNAS rounds with no need to have multiple faces out on the field - also World Archery doesn’t appear to recognise longbow so leaves us oldies alone too 😁
 

Whitehart

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Some thing needs to be done at the top level to make it more exciting on youtube/tv I am not sure this is it. The best innovation to date is indoors with the 11 dot.

Recently I was watching Football, Cricket Tennis and the Archery Olympic Qualification all live on at the same time so fliited between all of them. Televised archery has come a long way but is still so far behind the curve, most anoyingly they assume all that are watching are new to the sport does anyone still use CD's and feel it necessary to explain in simple terms all the time when I guess most watching are experienced archers. I can't remember one reference to the size of the balls in the other sports or the size of the pitch/court. When we had the European Champs at Nottingham 2016 there was a gap where shoppers could see the target and the archers on screen they soon understood the format just by watching - cheered the 10's groaned at the 9'sand 8's some stayed for 30min others 5 or 6.
 

KidCurry

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Some thing needs to be done at the top level to make it more exciting on youtube/tv I am not sure this is it. The best innovation to date is indoors with the 11 dot.
I've given up trying to think of a way. BBC4 7pm, The Joy of Painting, every day, for 30mins is a chap from the 80s painting the same 30 year old landscapes time and time again. Same mountains, same trees, same water. 403 episodes, 30mins/day watching paint dry. IMDb rated 9.3. Seriously just how boring must archery be to non archers compared to this? Reality is that archery is a niche sport with a niche audience.
 
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bimble

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of course, changes to the qualifying round won't change a thing for the spectators, as no-one watches those. Even at the Olympics they don't have spectators, and they have spectators at the rifle shooting qualification round!
 

Whitehart

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I've given up trying to think of a way. BBC4 7pm, The Joy of Painting, every day, for 30mins is a chap from the 80s painting the same 30 year old landscapes time and time again. Same mountains, same trees, same water. 403 episodes, 30mins/day watching paint dry. IMDb rated 9.3. Seriously just how boring must archery be to non archers compared to this? Reality is that archery is a niche sport with a niche audience.
I know what you mean, but it appeals to people of all ages, I know of shops that play this in the background - it's therapy a chance to switch off from the world and Bobs voice is so reassuring. Looking forward to the next 400 episodes :) perhaps not all but if it is a choice of the One Show or Bob to chill out...

Paris live as I type and already 2 references to CD's.
 

Toxy2021

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Did we not do the x ring scoring for compounds before ? And when do serious archers do longer than 70m anymore anyway (anyone fancy doing a York on a 100 cm face ?)
 

ArcheryFox

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Well, the 100cm face motion was withdrawn, 60 arrow round failed to pass (50:50 split, needed 2/3), x scores 11 outdoors proposal also failed to pass (100 for, 90 against, needed 2/3), and following this the x scores 11 indoors was withdrawn.

So much ado about nothing in the end, but I am still surprised these proposals didn't generate much more discussion in the community.

Question now is will these ideas be put to bed, or will the 50:50 voting split cause them to return in future years in an amended form?
 

bimble

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Well the 100cm face would make the 720 rotten for club level archers; the 60 arrow round would increase the number of ties (which a number of other proposals were trying to decrease)*; the 11 ring was just stupid as they could use the X ring to split ties but chose not to...

* - and the analogy that kept coming up that tennis uses the same length matches when they don't... some tournaments use best of three sets for men & women, others have the men play best of five

Did we not do the x ring scoring for compounds before ? And when do serious archers do longer than 70m anymore anyway (anyone fancy doing a York on a 100 cm face ?)
I did suggest to a friend this evening that a York round using faces the size of the distance (100yds/100cm, 80ys/80cm, 60yds/60cm) might be amusing...
 

Timid Toad

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The 122 and 60cm are sloppy metric conversions...but a new series of faces mixing metric and imperial, that's naughty!
 

bimble

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The 122 and 60cm are sloppy metric conversions...but a new series of faces mixing metric and imperial, that's naughty!
Well, in that case...

I did suggest to a friend this evening that a York round using faces the size of the distance (100yds/39.37", 80ys/31.5", 60yds/23.62") might be amusing...
of course, that doesn't quite have the nice symmetry of 100@100, 80@80, & 60@60 that I was going for... ;)
 
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