Absurd ranking system in ArcheryGB

olis

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I am new to archery having taken up recurve as a middle-aged hobby two years ago. Right now I'm 'first class' hoping to get to bowman this season, although I have yet to shoot any bowmen scores.
The point I would like to make is that simply by turning up to a few shoots locally I will probably end the season ranked in the top 250 or so nationally. This is nonsensical.
Surely it would be better to have a best scores system (as they are now doing for barebow and longbow) plus rankings for the tier1/ tier2 H2H shoots?
Best score rankings have the huge advantage of actually being meaningful to any normal archer (the current ranking system does work at the pointy end i.e. demi-gods only). Also Imperial shoots would become more relevant. And you could easily extend it into the indoor season for year-round interest. And it would encourage more people to compete in the smaller under-subscribed comps.
 

bimble

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They used to do 'best scores' but people complained that people could shoot well, but have a windy day and score less than someone shooting not so well, but with better weather. The current system takes weather out of the equation when comparing results from two shoots. The winner was almost certainly the best there, so they get the most ranking points. The fact that the people at the top now are basically the same people at the top before suggests that at least when it comes to working out the best, the two systems give similar answers.

Imperial shoots have not been part of the ranking system for... at least two decades.

And the new system is a lot more open than the previous system that required attendence of at least five shoots (2x 1440, 3x 720 + 1 x H2H) just to appear. In the current one, a single shoot will get you on, though five would be needed for an accurate placing. There are currently 678 gent recurvers in the ranking list... that's more than ever appeared under the old system for ALL archers of both genders and all bow styles combined.
 

Aleatorian

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I've got an unpopular opinion, I'm prepared to be flamed for it, but only being honest.

Imperial Shoots have never been relevant, not when you look at the world stage. Don't get me wrong, they have a great purpose of getting people into Target and vast variety of rounds mean you will never be bored.
But they aren't for the people that truly want to be competitive, at least within the Recurve and Compound Contingency.

I agree with Bimble on this current iteration of the ranking system taking out one of the main variables, which forced people to hunt for grounds that were quite sheltered to get the "best score" (one near Coventry comes to mind) and being more inclusive
 

Corax67

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Metric for the competitive and imperial for leisure - I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.



Karl
 

olis

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Thanks for the info Bimble. Different weather for different people is a good point.
This thread was started because I went to a shoot last weekend and was walked all over by some very good archers, so I was interested in seeing their rankings which were weirdly low.
I suppose that the classifications provide the best measure of how you are actually doing and the rankings should be taken with a very large pinch of salt for anyone outside the top 50 or so.
 

olis

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Hi Aletorian,
don't you think the better competitive measure would be a H2H ranking i.e. the current system without tier2+/tier3?
Personally I don't like H2H. At my level you're either squashing someone having a worse day than you are or being squashed by someone much better than you.
 

bimble

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The thing to remember is until you get five scores in the ranking you will be artificially lower in the rankings than your ability might suggest.

For example, I am a solid Master Bowman level archer, 2nd at the county champs last month, however I am not in the rankings at all! Mostly because I can't be bothered to do target shoots (and our county champs was a closed shoot, so no ranking points).

At the end of the day there is no way to accurately rank ALL archers, but what you can do is try to come up with a method that over time at least gives a fairly accurate order of people, and is as open as is possible.
 

bimble

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And it could be worse... I think the World Ranking system not only has different points for different events, but how long ago they were also changes the points that event is worth, as does the competitors present. If there are more high ranking archers present the event is worth more than if there aren't... they do describe it better than I can in THIS DOCUMENT
 
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