So you are at the archery range, and you overhear an archer say they have a selection shoot coming up. A few questions you might ask are: What is that? What is it for? How do you get to go to a selection shoot? There may be other things you are wondering about, and in this blog post, I will make things a bit clearer and give you an idea of what happens at them and what it feels like to be shooting in one.
What is a Selection Shoot?
Archery GB holds selection shoots for team/squad selection for International competitions. This happens with the GB squad and also in the junior ranks. A selection shoot will usually take place over a number of days or weekends and will include a variety of shooting variations. These will be things like:
- Shooting a 720 at 70m and then having your score worked out according to either a 3 or 6-arrow average.
- 3 arrow ends finals style – again using an arrow average for scoring.
- Round-robin head to heads
- Elimination head to heads
There may be other variations depending on what the selection committee deems most important in making sure the ‘in form’ archers are the ones selected.
How Do I Get Invited to a Selection Shoot?
When a selection shoot is going to take place, you will be able to find all the information about how to get into the selection process on the Archery GB website under Performance. There you will find a section labeled International Team Selection Criteria and a list of all the active selection processes available.
If we take a look at the selection process I am currently in for the 2023 World Youth Championships you will see you have to meet requirements such as being eligible to compete for Great Britain, minimum score threshold at a World Record Status event, and you must log your scores (it won’t be an automatic invited, so make sure your scores are logged in the correct place!)
What Happens at a Selection Shoot?
Each selection shoot has a selection process. This process can be different for different selections, so make sure you read what is going to happen carefully!
In my case, the selection shoot will take place over three days. For this shoot, the two best qualification scores entered per archer were used to calculate a six arrow average with a bonus if one or both scores were over a threshold.
These scores were the starting points for each archer. The selection shoot then continued as per the selection policy laid out in the document.
It can be a bit confusing, but there are examples to help you understand how everything works. I’m writing this roughly three weeks after shoots 1 and 2 and only now realise I misunderstood how one of the calculations worked! So read carefully and then ask someone else to read it and see if you both come up with the same thing.
How Does it Feel Being in a Selection Shoot?
I think being part of a process where you will be representing your country is a huge thing. These processes, starting in the youth division, are stressful yet completely beneficial to prepare for World and Olympic competitions. The desire to do your best and make the team elicits a whole range of emotions, and these will be the same emotions you will face when representing your country at an International event.
Me, I was nervous and excited, but more excited than nervous. In my opinion, it comes down to who can keep those emotions under control the best. With the second shoot only a few days away, it’s hard not to think about it too much while training. As Coach Patrick says, ‘Shoot your shot and don’t let emotion be a part of it’.
The Outcome of a Selection Shoot
Whatever the outcome, be proud that you made it into the selection process. Mark it up to experience, use it to inspire yourself, and say, ‘I did that!’.
Start looking at what is required to get into selection shoots, and if the score is within reach, make it a goal. It takes a lot of hard work to get into these, but it is worth it, and if you don’t quite get there, I bet you improved your scores by setting this as a goal!
