Absolutely not. Juniors of all abilities are invited to participate: the emphasis is on participation with a competitive element, not the other way around. We have not designed the tour specifically with the needs of high-performing junior archers in mind. Instead the tour simply seeks to link together the shoots that tournament organisers have already been running, and encourage more junior participation in them.
No. While we all might have ideas about what is best for junior archers, the last word on how shoots are run stays with the tournament organisers. They know what works for them at their particular shoot. The tour simply tries to boost junior participation across all shoots while making juniors also feel part of the broader archery community.
For the purposes of calculating the SCAYT standings, the main age-gender-bow type categories adopted by Archery GB for target archery will be used. That means age groups will be U21, U18, U16, U15, U14 and U12 where U denotes under. Age groups use the Archery GB ‘year of birth’ method, will be used to assess an archer’s correct age group. For more information on that, see here. Genders will be women and men. Bow types will be Recurve, Barebow, Compound and Longbow.
At some events listed on the Tour age groups (and in some cases genders) may be combined in a single competition. The event score allocated to each archer will follow that published in the results by the Tournament Organiser. Hence, for example, if U18 archer is shown coming second in a mixed age group competition, with first place taken by a U21 archer, the U18 archer will get the event score for second place. In the vast majority of cases shoots will award medals and present results following the full set of age-gender-bow type categories recommended by Archery GB.
The Archery GB document linked to in the question above lists the minimum recommended competition rounds for each age group. Where an archer chooses to shoot a round which involves shorter distances than the recommended round (often referred to as “shooting down”) they will be awarded a single tour point, irrespective of their placing. Archers shooting down will not affect the rankings of anyone shooting their standard distance. A small number of events are held entirely at shorter distances, in which case the recommended awarded distance from the TO will be used as the standard distance.
What if an archer chooses to “shoot up” – ie. shoot a round with longer distances than recommended for their age group? In such a case, the archer will receive an event score on the basis of the outcome in the category they have chosen to shoot in: one point for participating, two points for coming second or third, or three points for winning the category. Hence if an archer chooses to shoot up and wins the higher category, they gain they same 4 point event score as they would have achieved had they won the category shooting their recommended round. This procedure reflects that adjusting event scores if archers choose to shoot up would (like adjusting for shooting down) create too much complexity for the scoring system.
Yes. Gold, silver and bronze awards for total tour points will be awarded at the end of the tour, including the double tour points gained from the SCAYT Final/SCAS Junior Championships. If an archer secures enough tour points to win an award, but is not present for the SCAS junior Championships, the medal can be claimed by sending an email to scayt.organiser@scasarchery.org.uk and we will post it to you.
No, it is not entirely fair, and we recognise that. The uneven distribution of shoot locations has influenced the way that the SCAYT points scoring system has been designed. We would like there to be a more even and wider spread of shoots around the region. But we can only work with the shoots that are currently being organised – SCAS has very limited ability to organise shoots directly. Please encourage your local clubs to host a shoot at which juniors can shoot if you feel your area is not currently being well served by the events on the tour! We would be delighted to include a wider geographical range of shoot locations.
Yes. In order to be eligible for a SCAYT award, archers will have to have competed in a minimum of three SCAYT events, one of which can be the final.
Yes. Simply email scayt.organiser@scasarchery.org.uk and you will no longer be shown in the updates of the SCAYT standings, and no longer eligible for a discounted place at the SCAYT finals and SCAS Junior Championships.
No. This option existed in the 2023-2025 seasons, but added complexity to the collation of results and made it harder to fairly allocate points amongst SCAS archers.