FITA Field : A quick overview

FITA Field archery gives you the opportunity to try a different type of archery, combining outdoors, fun and skill. For those interested in the details of the discipline, you can download the FITA rule book which contains the finer details.

FITA Field caters for the following divisions and classes in world championships:

 

• Divisions: Barebow, Recurve and Compound.
• Classes: Male and Female.

SANAA has a number of additional classes and divisions to allow juniors and standard bow archers to participate. These are contained in the SANAA Constitution and Rules.

 

Courses

On field rounds the competitors walk around a course or path with ribbons or similar indicators showing you which way to walk. The targets are shot from shooting pegs of different colours depending on class and/or division. The shooting pegs are numbered from 1 to 12 or 24 and are shot in an ascending order. Care should be taken by all archers to ensure that arrows are not shot in the direction of other archers, spectators or any other obstruction.

 

Groups

Competitors walk together in groups of 3 or 4 archers and shoot as ’pairs’ (two and two or two and one) alternating which pair will shoot first at a target. (Field rules article 9.5). The groups are assigned to a target number when starting the shooting. All groups start the shooting at the same time and follow the course from one target to the other. However, if the numbers of archers are more than the capacity of the course (4 x the number of targets) blind groups may be assigned to follow on, once a target assigned group has finished shooting.

 

Group conduct

Field archery is a gentleman’s sport, and there is nobody there to help you so everybody in the group should help each other in order to do the correct things in accordance with the rules and make sure that fairness and sportsmanship is taken care of.

The archer with the lowest starting number is the group leader and is responsible for the groups conduct. This archer will also call the scores. The second and third archer will be the scorer, while the fourth archer will mark the arrow holes. The group should be brisk in their tasks and then move onto the next target, having consideration for the group following.

 

Shooting Position

The archers shoot from the left and right hand side of a yellow, blue or red peg, dependant of division. You may move about your position in a radius of approximately one metre. You are not permitted to stand in front of the peg when shooting. An archer leaving his shooting position indicates that he has finished shooting at that target.

 

The pegs colour coded:

 

• Blue peg : Bare Bow
• Red peg : Compound and recurve.
• Yellow Peg : Standard Bow

The archers in the group can decide between themselves how they shoot. i.e. the shooting position and the rotation, but if they cannot agree the FITA rules apply. If there are three archers in the group, the third archer shoots alone through the course (unless the group agrees differently) . This is most practical in order to avoid confusion. When there are four in the group, the archers shoot in pairs one on each side of the shooting peg. An archer shooting alone would be expected to shoot from the left side of the peg – again, in order to avoid confusion. Shooting alternates between the targets. So if the first pair shoots first, the next pair would shoot first on the next target.

 

Shooting the Target Faces

The rules are covered under Article 9.5 of the rule book. and there are different target faces depending on the round. Click here to view the distances and target faces used.

 

20cm faces

There are 4 rows of faces, each having 3 x 20cm faces placed on the same butt. The first two archers to shoot that target shoot in row no 1 and 3 seen from left to right. The archer on the left shooting position shoots on the far left row and the archer on the right hand side of the shooting peg shoots on the third row.
The two next archers to shoot, shoot on row no 2 and 4 respectively. If shooting alone as the ‘first pair’ it is most practical to shoot on the far left row and if you shoot alone as the ‘second pair’ you will correspondingly shoot in the second row of faces.

 

40cm faces

There will always be 4 faces on the butt. The first two archers to shoot will shoot on the two faces on top. The left archer to the left and the right side archer to the right side top face. Correspondingly the two next archers will shoot on the two lower faces. If shooting alone and as the first ‘pair’ you will shoot from the left side of the peg on the left side top face and if you shoot in the second ‘pair’ you will shoot from the left side of the peg on the bottom left face.

 

60cm faces

On unmarked rounds there will be one face on the butt, on marked distances there may be two target faces on the butt. Archers shooting from the left side of the peg shoots on the left face and archers shooting from the right hand side of the peg will shoot on the face to the right ( if there are two faces on the butt). Otherwise there is only one face to hit for all in the group. In the finals round in a championship there will also be two faces.

 

80cm faces

There is always only one 80cm face on the butt and all archers in the group shoot at the same face. In the finals round in a championship there will be two faces

 

Behaviour

In FITA Field archery it is recognized that the archers help each other when possible, for example by spotting. However, since part of the competition also may be to judge the distance to a target face and sometimes even to judge the size of the faces (on unmarked rounds), archers do not and should not give away distances or sizes of faces.

It will and should be considered cheating to reveal distances and target face sizes to other competitors or anybody else for that matter. National rules and regulations must be taken care of and safety is important..

 

Correcting Scoring Errors

The same rules that apply to a FITA tournament apply for a FITA Field Tournament, so as long as the archers are in agreement, cross out the incorrect score, record the correct score, and all the archers initial the change. There should not really be a need for Judge calls.

Judging arrows

All the archers in the group judge the arrow in question. However, if there is any disagreement, then call a judge. But before you do, bear in mind that you will delay the tournament, so make sure!

 

Time and Timing

Each archer is allowed 4 minutes per target (3 arrows).

 

Equipment failure: (In FITA Championships)

If a major equipment failure occurs, the archer may have up to 30min. to fix the failure or bring new equipment into the course. During the 30min period the other archers will wait after having scored shot arrows. The 30 minutes starts after a Judge has been called and he, if need be, can allow groups catching up to shoot on that butt, minimising the delay.

After 30 minutes the other members of the group will start shooting again, even if the equipment failure still remains. The archer with equipment failure may continue shooting when and if he can repair the equipment (exceeding the 30min), but he will lose the arrows/targets shot between the end of the 30min period and when he can start shooting again.

 

Archers tying

To solve a tie the following procedure is used in ascending order

 

• Greatest number of 5’s
• Greatest number of X’s
• If still tied, the competitors are declared equal. However, ties concerning ranking in eliminations and finals can not be declared equal and thus will be decided by a toss of coin.
• For ties concerning entrance to the Elimination round or the Finals rounds as well as in the medals matches, a tie will be decided by shoot off.

Archers Equipment

In field archery, generally speaking, the same equipment may be used as at the target field or indoor with the following exception.

Due to the unmarked courses it has been necessary to make rules that imply what is allowed or not allowed on the unmarked courses. Basically this concerns how to define range finders. The Field committee has said that all kinds of range finders or equipment customized to be a range finder is prohibited. However, sights scopes etc. of standard design which can be bought by everybody has been known to be allowed even if this equipment may have a device mounted that may be used for comparing. This is done because there is no way we can stop people from measuring the distance using their equipment. And thus FAC says that as long as it is equal to all, it's acceptable.

What we want to avoid is a mechanism that gives a competitor an advantage over another. The rules also specify that an archer should not have equipment (means) that will help him in measuring the distance.

By this we understand, equipment that do not belong on a bow (needed in order to sight and shoot). You may have your sight marks written on a note, and you may have the rules book or extracts from the rules book with you, but you may not have any notes that can help you in estimate the distance relative to angle etc. The same goes for electronic storage devices.

 

Distances

Field (marked distances) are said to be shot on 5m intervals. However, these 5m intervals may be adjusted plus/minus 2m, provided the correct distance is marked on the peg. Tolerances on the distances given should be +/- 25cm for distances up to 15m and +/-100cm for distances above.
Unmarked distances are set up with a min. and a max distance relative to the face size – with a little knowledge it should be possible to estimate and even measure (click here for the FITA guide on how to do this FITA Field Guidelines 1.8Mb) the distance, so at least you will not miss the buttress. It is not at all as mysterious as some may try to impose on you.

 

Click here to view the target faces used and distances.