Are mens and womens scores comparable?

[Barry C]

Just out of interest I intended to shoot a ladies fita for#a comparison, but in the end i only managed a long metric (a half fita 70m + 60m)</p>

It was windy and the trees were blowing about, it was also raining and I had already shot 120 arrows with my 48# practice#recurve.</p>

But I still managed 605 for the ladies long metric, this compared to my best score for a mens long metric (90m + 70m) of 539 shot last month on a perfect summers day with no wind. My competition bow is now at 41# a weight that many good#women can manage. </p>

My conclusion is that mens and womens scores ane not comparable, and for a given womens score, it would take a male of much higher skill to equal it. i.e a man who can shoot 1200 is much better than a woman who can shoot 1200. I think the difference becomes smaller at#the highest level but still exists.</p>

Has anyone else shot rounds for the opposite gender who can make an eduated comment? </p>

Hopefully this will not turn into a sexist arguement. By comparable scores I wish to include 90m male and 60m for#female. So comparing a long metric or a whole fita.</p>

[Little Miss Purple]

My partner and I are baffled by what you actually mean when you are comparing scores. Are you comparing a male and female of similar ability shooting at the same distance or at a different distance? Surely there will be an advantage to the 'lady' shooting at the shorter distance as by my thinking everyone should be more accurate at the shorter distance??

[Barry C]

Sorry to have confused you, but I cant explain it any simpler.

[Barry C]

Ok I did some thinking. I am trying to say</p>

Do you consider a man who can shoot 1200, equal in ability for a female who can shoot 1200?</p>

My#suggestion is that they are not equal in ability.</p>

[Archery1st]

If both are shooting their own rounds then scores are compariable, if however they are shooting the same rounds then no they aren't.</p>

Having said that it does depend on what level you are looking at, at the very top level of International there will be little or no difference between them, even when shooting the same rounds, just look at FITA 720's.</p>

[Rik]

I misunderstood what you were getting at at first...
No, the male and female FITAs are in no way comparable, just think of how they swap the 90m for a 60m distance - a 30m difference! On the other hand, 70m rounds should be directly comparable. As would comparing men and women both shooting the ladies FITA.
Just IMO.

[Marcus26]

Archery Australia has done the maths required to be able to compare pretty much any round so. It's very accurate and I use it all the time to keep an eye on how I am progressing over different rounds.
If we take a rating of 82 that gives us the following scores

Mens FITA: 1205
90m: 269
70m: 300
50m: 301
30m: 336

Ladies FITA: 1251
70m: 300
60m: 314
50m: 301
30m: 336

anyone who wants a copy of the spreadsheet
http://www.dva.asn.au/downloads/scoreindex.xls

[JohnM]

Just a thought - what about the Olympics?

Both men and women shoot 70m, so scores "should" be directly comparable, and if you scanned the scores from Athens, you'd probably find that for equal rankings within gender, the scores are roughly equal across genders (i.e., the top 10 women are pretty much equal to the top 10 men).

However, the women are shooting these scores with lighter draw weights (around 10-12 # lighter?), so you could argue that the women's round in this case is a bit more difficult (arrows having a lower initial velocity, subject to more cross-wind effects) - but then again they probably use different arrows to compensate for this......

[Barry C]

The difference in a fita score comes from the men shooting one distance 30m longer away than a woman. The women at the olympics are I am told shooting between 44 - (park sh)#to about 38 for the rest of the women. The women stay and beat the men up to 70. I think Park has shot a 351 70m. Thats higher than any man so far. But we are talking her about elite archers, not average archers. I think the difference largely goes away at the higher level.</p>