The New Testament

World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate tablets

And lo, after labouring mightily, did AGB come down from the mountain top. With them did they did bring tablets containing 128 tables, divided into four bow types, eight age categories with three new classifications each divided unto three sub-classifications.
And the Toxophilites, who are the chosen people, did look upon the tablets and did say “What the Hail!”

January 2023 sees the release of Archery GB’s new outdoor classification and handicapping system for archery and its a pretty radical departure from the old system. Gone are the 3rd/2nd/1st/bowman/master bowman/grand master bowman and in their stead there are three categories or tiers. These tiers are:-

The Archer Tier which is aimed at the wide range of club archers from beginners shooting their first rounds to social archers who might shoot scored rounds and like to dabble in hunting badges.
The Bowman Tier is aimed at archers who regularly enter competitions from club-level all the way to national level events.
The Master Bowman Tier is aimed at archers competing at the highest levels of the sport.

Each of the first two tiers are split into 1st, 2nd and 3rd class with the required scores to qualify increasing between the classes. The Master Bowman tier is split into Master Bowman, Grandmaster Bowman and Elite Master Bowman.

In addition to the new tiers, there are eight age and two gender categories to further define which tables you should be using. These are Under 12, Under 14, Under 15, Under 16, Under 18, Under 21, Senior and 50+. Each age category exists for Men and Women. The bow categories are the rather predictable Recurve, Compound, Barebow and Longbow with horsebow, american flatbow and other traditional bows being given the cold shoulder.

We will be rewriting the classification and handicapping pages on the website to reflect the new rules … once our editor has stopped weeping, wailing and gnashing his teeth – he hates change … and we have made sure we have the new processes down. The new tables will only affect this coming outdoor season (2023). The indoor tables wont change till next indoor season (2023/24).

If you want to look at the new tables before we get the website updated, go to this link at AGB and enter classification in the keyword search. To get automatically calculated handicaps and classifications in both the new system and the old, we recommend using the Archery Calculator website which certainly gets the job done.

Update: Website updated for 2023 Classifications and Handicaps.
Tables to be found here.

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Moses Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay