Types of tournaments
There are a few basic types of tournaments and it is important to understand the difference between them.
It is vital that you understand the format, rules and participation requirements before attempting to enter any tournament.
Most tournaments, even possibly at the club level, will have period of time to submit your entries. Make sure you enter in time as late entries, after the closing time, cause much disruption to the organisers who would then need to try re-organise target allocations and the field layout, just to accommodate you.
All tournaments also have starting times and most tournaments will not wait for you if you’re late, so ensure you know and understand the times involved and be there well in time…
Also remember that it is the archer themself, not whoever may be entering a tournament on their behalf, that is responsible for understanding what it is they will be participating in and all the rules/regulations and requirements.
Club tournaments
Club tournaments are run, managed and handled entirely at the club level, with no involvement from the province or national archery organisation (SANAA/SANIFAA). These should be fairly informal, but used to prepare archers for higher level tournaments, so they understand things like scoring, when to shoot, when to move forward for scoring etc, basically a training ground so archers understand the process better going forward.
Scores shot at these tournaments remain at a club level and the scores have no recognition by the province or national level.
In our case, this would be our HTA 720 Handicap, purely a club tournament.
Provincial tournaments
Provincial tournaments are organised by the province and typically run and managed by the club hosting the tournament.
Scores shot at these tournaments remain at a province level and the scores have no recognition by the national level.
These would be like the WC Outdoor League, which is a provincial level tournament with all provincially participating archers competing against each other, but run and managed by the various clubs with the finals each year at one club.
This may be the next step up for archers in terms of tournament participation, and again should be used as a training ground for preparation to the next level.
Another provincial tournament would be the Disa tournaments, managed by the province and run by the hosting club.
This may be the next step up for archers, from the WC Outdoor League, in terms of tournament participation, and again should be used as a training ground for preparation to the next level.
Sanctioned tournaments
A sanctioned tournament would be a formal tournament sanctioned at a National level and/or World level.
Scores shot at these tournaments may count towards provincial, national and possibly world ranking/records.
These tournaments are not to be entered lightly and it is not advisable to enter these tournaments unless you have past experience in such tournaments or have gained the necessary knowledge and experience of tournaments from participating in the afore mentioned tournament levels.
It is of utmost importance that you fully understand the tournament format, your relevant division and class and therefore the distance you would be shooting before considering entering a tournament.
If you are unsure about anything relating to the tournament then please enquire at a club level for assistance, but again you should be participating in the club and/or provincial level tournaments before attempting to participate in a sanctioned tournament.
It is very frustrating for tournament organisers to try handle queries for a sanctioned tournament from someone that clearly does not know what they are trying to enter and do not yet have the experience for such a tournament.
It would also be frustrating and difficult for the judge to be constantly watching such an inexperienced archer on the line, and could potentially end in warnings from the judge or possibly even being asked to stop shooting altogether if proceedings are not adhered to correctly during the tournament.
For World Archery sanctioned tournaments you can see the distances and target faces, per division and class by downloading the table from the WCAF website downloads page – WA 1440, 720 & Indoor Distances & Targets Applicable
In summary, please understand that tournaments at any level do not just magically materialise, there would typically be multiple people working in the background to arrange, coordinate, manage and run a tournament and it is unfair on those people when you, who is trying to enter, do not know what it is you’re entering and do not have the relevant knowledge to efficiently participate. Do not be surprised of you get terse or impolite responses from tournament organisers when you are unprepared…
That being said, please do enter tournaments at your relevant level and do progress as soon as you are ready, archery is a relatively small sport so participation is needed, but you have to start somewhere…
Enjoy your sport and keep shooting those arrows.