Dear Judge, what if . . .

Mufti

Member
Dear judge,

At a recent club shoot we had a Clout competition with Jelly Bows at 80 yards.

We had an arrow which had clearly performed a summersault and ended with the nock in the ground and the point in the air (about a foot in the air)!

I called the nock end the point and scored accordingly.

What would a proper judge at a proper clout have done?
 

bimble

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Rule 704 (a) Scores shall be determined according to the distance of arrows at point of entry in ground from centre of flag stick...

Rule 704 (d) says "An arrow lying loose on the ground shall be scored in accordance with the position of its point", but in your case the arrow isn't lying loose on the ground.

I would say that as the arrow is entered into the ground where it is and should count there...
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
Strictly, it's the point at which the shaft is positioned as it penetrates the target area, so nock/point is irrelevant, unless the arrow is lying loose - where the clout rules say specifically that the position of the point is to be used.

Just my opinion... (not a judge :) )
 

Mufti

Member
Thank you both.
Glad I didn't add or deny points then :)

It was a rather serious competition as you can imagine with tip-top prizes up for grabs.

There must be situations that the rule book doesn't cover and judges are expected to make decisions on the spur of the moment and subsequently seek clarification afterwards from their peers or other authorities.
Are these discussions available to the general public for our education (and dare I say it entertainment)?
 

bimble

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There must be situations that the rule book doesn't cover and judges are expected to make decisions on the spur of the moment and subsequently seek clarification afterwards from their peers or other authorities.
Are these discussions available to the general public for our education (and dare I say it entertainment)?
World Archery does a judges newsletter in which they pose a hypothetical situation and ask judges to send in what they would do to see if there's anything they might need to send out more clarification on. The answers are given in the next edition. This should be the link to the relevant bit of the WA website
 

Corax67

Well-known member
World Archery does a judges newsletter in which they pose a hypothetical situation and ask judges to send in what they would do to see if there's anything they might need to send out more clarification on. The answers are given in the next edition. This should be the link to the relevant bit of the WA website
That is such a brilliant idea - utilising the experience & common sense of their membership to tweak rules.


Karl
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
That is such a brilliant idea - utilising the experience & common sense of their membership to tweak rules.


Karl
From reading the fall out on numerous occasions, it's more of a way of reminding judges what they are supposed to be doing (enabling competition).
A lot of the scenarios are things which are actually in the rules, but which judges have been known to get wrong. Similar to the kinds of questions they get reassessed on at renewal time.
 

bimble

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it's also interesting when you get an answer that has a 50:50ish split in the answers. Such as the one where an archer shoots 5 arrows, doesn't realise he hasn't shot all 6 and leaves the line. it isn't until there are ~20sec left that he realises his error and returns to the line, however, because the line is clear before he gets to it the DOS signals the end of that end. The archer argues that he should have a full four minutes to shoot his arrows and that he still had 20 seconds to shoot his last arrow. Would you let him shot it?
 

Mufti

Member
As an archer yes, the judge blew up before the allotted time only for the sake of moving the competition along and stop it getting boring.

From a judges point of view no, the line was clear so that end was over and signalled accordingly.

End of the day it's a 50:50 decision I guess so coming down on one side or another is valid.

We are always told the judges are there to help us as archers - where's the help in that scenario?
 

bimble

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I seem to recall (and this is from last night so my quoting won't be exact), that the archer has to bear some responsibility to getting their arrows shot and that leaving the line is the way to telling the judges/DOS that they have finished shooting. If they are incorrect in this, it is their error and if they don't realise until too late it is their tough luck.
 

blakey

Active member
it's also interesting when you get an answer that has a 50:50ish split in the answers. Such as the one where an archer shoots 5 arrows, doesn't realise he hasn't shot all 6 and leaves the line. it isn't until there are ~20sec left that he realises his error and returns to the line, however, because the line is clear before he gets to it the DOS signals the end of that end. The archer argues that he should have a full four minutes to shoot his arrows and that he still had 20 seconds to shoot his last arrow. Would you let him shot it?
If the end is over and the timers reset how would you know what time was left? :)
 

gtek

Member
If the end is over and the timers reset how would you know what time was left? :)
If this archer were to step off the line, and immediately approach a judge with a declaration of equipment failure with one arrow to shoot, then they would get 40 seconds to shoot the arrow in question.

A clicker that has moved from its correct position is an example of an equipment failure. Another is a change in brace height. In my experience the judges tend not to involve themselves in the particulars of an equipment failure.

All within the rules.
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
That one is interesting... I haven't read the interpretations, but personally I think the arguments have to revolve around the behaviour of the archer.

The DOS correctly signalled the end, when the line was clear. It's not up to him to check on each archer.
So...
if the archer had notified a judge before the end of the end, I think I would be inclined to allow the time. If not, tough. The "leaving the line" indicated that he had finished shooting, he would have to take some action before time is called to amend that impression.

I would note, that match play rules appear to allow the competitors to leave the line and return (but then don't allow extra time for equipment failure).
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
Here's one for you...
In a HTH competition, two archers inexperienced with the format, face each other in the first round.
Two score boards are provided for cross-scoring.
Archer 1 correctly scores his opponent's arrows as they are called.
Archer 2 scores his own arrows.
after a couple of ends Archer 1 notices the scores written down by his opponent do not match his expectations, and understanding dawns - they call a judge.

What would you do?
Re-shoot the match?
Put the one with a score through?
Put the one without a score through?
Disqualify both?
 

bimble

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see... all sorts of fun and interesting scenarios! :D

Or the one in the latest copy - " Do you find anything wrong or suspicious with this archer’s form and equipment? Once you have
identified the issue, can you explain how you would handle it from a judging perspective?"

now, assuming that by the second sentence that there is something wrong... the only thing I can think of is that the string-stopper *might* be touching the archer's arm at full draw, but it's not very obvious. Though I was surprised at the fact the archers on target 5 got away with leaving their scoreboard where they have!
 

bimble

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Here's one for you...
In a HTH competition, two archers inexperienced with the format, face each other in the first round.
Two score boards are provided for cross-scoring.
Archer 1 correctly scores his opponent's arrows as they are called.
Archer 2 scores his own arrows.
after a couple of ends Archer 1 notices the scores written down by his opponent do not match his expectations, and understanding dawns - they call a judge.

What would you do?
Re-shoot the match?
Put the one with a score through?
Put the one without a score through?
Disqualify both?
recurve or compound?? if recurve the score doesn't actually matter, it's the set points, so if both agree whether Archer 2 has scored set points or not, it can be inferred if Archer 1 has out scored them or not. If compound... well... :confused: but then again, I'm not paid the bottle of wine for making those decisions!!
 

Mufti

Member
Re-shoot the match?
Put the one with a score through?
Put the one without a score through?
Disqualify both?
Archer one has made no fault so 2, 3 & 4 would be unfair.
If these are the only options and archer two does not agree with archer one's recollection of his own score then a rematch is called for?
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
recurve or compound?? if recurve the score doesn't actually matter, it's the set points, so if both agree whether Archer 2 has scored set points or not, it can be inferred if Archer 1 has out scored them or not. If compound... well... :confused: but then again, I'm not paid the bottle of wine for making those decisions!!
I should say, this was a plain hth - 12/18 arrow passes, no setting, so the scores were important...
A1 was actually losing, by his reckoning, just to complicate things.
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
Archer one has made no fault so 2, 3 & 4 would be unfair.
If these are the only options and archer two does not agree with archer one's recollection of his own score then a rematch is called for?
Well, it was indoors with fresh faces, so they could have started counting holes (except, it's indoors, so the likelihood of superposed holes is much greater)...
 

Corax67

Well-known member
I partly agree with Mufti - Archer 1 has indeed done nothing wrong - but rather than a rematch I think Archer 2 forfeits because it was wholly his error and there is no way of establishing without any chance of doubt his score to that point.


Karl
 
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