Gents/Ladies etc

[hypertigger]

back to a previous point: i think there would be too many admin issues with trying to split people up according to poundage. you'd have to measure everyone's bow drawing the arrow through the clicker, but what would you do with someone who doesn't shoot with one!!

[GreenSteve]

oooh got a bit of something going here
to me some sports are and should be seperated into men/women like athletics for example male muscle mass is very different to female muscle mass and so male/female could not compete evenly
but with archery its not so much a matter of physical ability
maybe things should remain seperated women/men`s archery but why is it eaiser for women to achieve the classifications, some blokes may have trouble pulling more than 32lb and as a result never be able to reach 100yrds with a decent sight mark and but comfortably hit and group at 80yrds and yet can never get past 1st class where as a woman with exactly the same set up can go one to achieve gmb`s at this distance with lower scores than the male equivelent ??

ps. not being motivated by having been beaten by a woman
also i am comfortably shooting at 100yrds and WILL achieve bowman scores

[hypertigger]

i think there should be some distinction between what poundage limbs you pull and how much poundage you actually have on your fingers.....

i have 36lbs short G3s on a 23" riser = 38lbs limbs, but my drawlength is only 26", therefore optimistically, i only have about 34lbs on my fingers....

conversely, my old supervisor draws about 32" with 40lbs limbs, and we measured the weight on his fingers to be about 50lbs due to his paragon riser

[Little Miss Purple]

I think having a heavier poundage really comes into play when the weather is bad, I can see a huge difference in how may arrows fly as they are so short & light!

I am now pulling about 29lbs on my fingers having wound my bow up a bit and can reach 80 yards no problem.

IMHO, a lot of it is technique but most of it is confidence / mental ability

[Kellog]

Now I'm completely the other way in relation to the majority of female archers, in that I've got 41lbs on fingers at 27". So making the distance isn't a problem.
However I really struggle at 100yrds (trying to solve that by shooting Abbeydale's York this weekend! anyone going?) I can barely get a sightmark at all, and have to aim off the majority of the time.
Intellectually I know its because I'm short, and have a round face so relatively its a high anchor point.

What I'm trying to say, tho not clearly as I'm shattered atm, is that its not just a question of poundage, nor gender (as has been explained by previous posts) but such a wide range of factors that it would be impossible to actually split up a field into valid/equivaent competitiors within a class.

At least with a gender split there are less complications or areas to complain about (like "these bowscales are faulty" etc) which there would be if we moved towards a system that took into account more factors.

PS sorry for the rambling post

[Marcus26]

I would like to see archers seperated by score rather than bow type or sex.
For example, everyone over 14 starts off shooting a 60m FITA round (60, 50, 40, 30) and once they hit a particulat score barrier they are bumped up to a Short FITA. Again once hitting a score barrier they are bumped up to Mens.
So what you will end up with is that the people would compete on ability rather than sex or bow type and adults can move to longer range when they are ready, not straight out to 90m.
We hurt our archer's development so much by making them shoot 70m and 90m too soon.

[Furface]

Originally Posted by Marcus26

We hurt our archer's development so much by making them shoot 70m and 90m too soon.

Couldn't agree more. Though in a lot of cases we don't "make them". How often have you seen a new archer, straight off the course, want to have a bash at what the big boys are doing. and either misses so much he gives up altogether, or ruins his technique and muscles in an attempt to get the distance. Do we ever stop them?

[Marcus26]

agreed. We had one guy at our club ruin 3 doz arrows doing this despite our insistance he work his way back.
We now have a system in place to work them back slowly. Working brilliantly.

Originally Posted by Furface

Couldn't agree more. Though in a lot of cases we don't "make them". How often have you seen a new archer, straight off the course, want to have a bash at what the big boys are doing. and either misses so much he gives up altogether, or ruins his technique and muscles in an attempt to get the distance. Do we ever stop them?