2026 Updates to the Archery GB Classification Scheme
In 2023-2025 the classification scheme for Archery GB (AGB) was given a long-overdue upgrade. As part of this it was promised to regularly review scores and tables keeping them up to date with changes in the sport. The first of these was in 2026. In this article I summarise the changes that were made and the rationale behind them. I provide simple explanations for all participants whilst also delving into mathematical/technical code details for those so inclined.
All of these updates are implemented and released in archeryutils version 3.0.0, available on PyPI to pip install. They are also active on ArcheryCalculator.co.uk which is already providing 2026 classifications and tables.
If you want to understand the changes in terms of code you can inspect the code changes on GitHub , and I will provide specific links to code changes throughout the article.
Male becomes Open
Perhaps the easiest change to get one’s head around is the change from the “Male” and “Female” category to “Open” and “Female”.
This reflects changes made by Archery GB in October 2025 to rename the categories of competition. Updates to the rules of shooting were released in April 2026 implementing this.
In order to align with these competition categories, the Rules of Shooting, and Shooting Administrative Procedures, and to be consistent and clear, the classification tables have been updated to match. There is now a Female table and an Open table.
None of the handicap thresholds (and therefore scores) have been altered as part of this change; it is a simple relabelling. The “Female” table remains as it always was, whilst the “Open” tables are the scores previously labelled as “Male”.
Accompanying these changes is the renaming of the Gent’s and Ladies’ Long Metrics to Long Metric 90 and Long Metric 70 respectively.
These changes to the tables are made to conform to Archery GB policies and should not be taken as a complete personal endorsement of their approach to this matter.
The code changes relating specifically to this section can be found on GitHub .
New prestige rounds
At World Archery (WA) Congress 2023 in Berlin the motion for the addition of a new Under 15 age category for WA events was approved, effective from January 2024. Whilst Archery GB was already ahead of this with Under 15 (and multiple other) age categories, WA also introduced new 720 rounds for the new category that did not align with those deemed “age-appropriate” based on distance by Archery GB.
Specifically:
- Under 15 Recurve will shoot the WA 40m round.
72 arrows at a 122cm face at 40m - Under 15 Compound will shoot the WA 40m Compound round.
72 arrows at an 80cm face (6 or 10 rings) at 40m - Under 15 Barebow will shoot the WA 30m Barebow round.
72 arrows at a 122cm face at 30m
as detailed in Book 2, Section 4.5 of the World Archery Rulebook .
720 rounds are one of the prestige rounds from which archers can claim MB classifications. Specifically, according to the Shooting Administrative Procedures, the prestige rounds include “The age- and bowstyle-appropriate World Archery Round for International Competition (or above, up to the senior bowstyle-appropriate round)”. As such these needed to be updated.
The changes now mean that:
- Under 15 Recurve can now claim MB from the WA 40m round.
- Under 15 Compound can now claim MB from the WA 40m Compound round.
- Under 15 Barebow can now claim MB from the WA 30m Barebow round and, by extension, the Metric 122-40 round.
- Under 14 Barebow can now claim MB from the WA 30m Barebow round
The code changes relating specifically to this section can be found on GitHub .
No handicap/score threshold changes
As part of the review Archery GB analysed MB claims that have been submitted since the previous classification changes came into play. It was determined that there was no evidence of bias towards claims in any bowstyle or gender category, relative to participation, so score (handicap) thresholds will remain the same.
It was noted that some junior age groups saw claims slightly higher than the baseline of other categories. However, given the smaller quantity of data (number of participants) and higher annual fluctuations it was decided that there was insufficient evidence to support a change in thresholds. This is particularly true when balanced against the “consistent progression” aspect of the classifications, discussed during the original release, that gives juniors a predictable journey through the scheme as they age.
Handling gaps in tables
One of the more technical/mathematical changes to come in is a protection against gaps in the handicap tables.
This can occur at very high or low scores when the handicap step between two scores separated by only 1 point is more than a single handicap point.
Such an example occurs at both ends of the table for a Warwick:
| handicap | score |
|---|---|
| … | … |
| 12 | 432 |
| 13 | |
| 14 | 431 |
| 15 | |
| 16 | 430 |
| 17 | 429 |
| … | … |
| 132 | 6 |
| 133 | |
| 134 | |
| 135 | 5 |
| 136 | |
| 137 | |
| 138 | |
| 139 | |
| 140 | 4 |
| … | … |
If the handicap threshold for a classification was 13 or 137 the required scores would be returned as 431 and 4 respectively. However, both of these are possible at a lower handicap.
When we originally developed the new outdoor and field classification scores we did not account for this as the only place it would have been noticed is at the top levels, and no outdoor category was in danger of hitting these scores. This was not true on the indoor tables, however, where compound archers regularly come close to maximum scores on the Worcester and Vegas300 etc. As such, additional checks were applied and we realised that they also have an effect at the lower end as well as the top end.
The check we apply is to look at the next handicap above the classification threshold in the integer handicap tables. If the score for this is the same as that for the current classification then the required score is incremented by 1 to ensure that archers are shooting “this standard or better” at each classification. In the instance this occurs and the score is the maximum then no classification is available (see the Indoor Female Compound table for a Worcester). So in the above example the 431 and 4 would be incremented to 432 and 5.
We now apply this rule to both the outdoor and field tables as well as indoor. This ensures that there are no “easier” rounds, and prepares us for future rounds that might have score thresholds approaching the maximum score on a round.
Practically, this has no impact for the majority of scores in the tables; it only occurs for large handicaps and low scores. There are no changes to scores on “age-appropriate” rounds for any category so this is expected to have a limited effect on the majority of archers. It should be seen as a technical future-proofing correction.
The code changes relating specifically to this section can be found on GitHub .
Preventing repeated scores
Finally, we also introduced an additional check on scores to prevent duplicates in the tables. This occurs when there are multiple handicap points between two successive score points. If the thresholds for two classifications both fall in this gap it will result in the required score for both classifications being the same.
To solve this we set a new rule in the construction of the tables that, once scores have been calculated from handicap thresholds, each classification must be at least one score point higher than the one below. Whenever a duplicate score does occur then the higher classification will have its score threshold increased by a single point.
This can be considered a bugfix and is now applied to all tables. Fortunately there was only a single round in a single category that was affected by this – Under 12 Longbows shooting a New Warwick.
The old score thresholds (A3 to B1) were [2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9] whilst the new ones would
be [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9], the new logic being that 2 cannot be repeated, so A2 increases
to 3 – one physical score point more. This then has a cascading effect with subsequent
thresholds for A1 and B3 also increasing to prevent repeated scores.
If you check the new tables for Under 12 Longbow shooting a New Warwick you will notice
that the scores are actually [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10].
This is because it is also subject to the previous change as the score of 2 was actually
lower than the B3 handicap threshold. As a result the A3 score is now 3, with all subsequent
categories (A2-B1) being incremented as a result.
In reality no under 12 should be shooting a New Warwick for classification purposes, so
this change should have no real world effect.
The main takeaway is that this is now in place for future generations of the tables to prevent repeated scores.
The code changes relating specifically to this section can be found on GitHub .
Restoration of free open-access to the tables
This change does not affect the scores in the tables, but does affect their availability. Part of the original agreement when we developed the new tables, particularly the handicaps, was to make them publicly available to all archers in the hope of increasing their usage by the archery community. This is in contrast with the previous handicap tables.
Similarly, I make the code used to generate the tables freely available and transparent as the archeryutils Python package , and indeed there are several apps and websites that make use of this.
At some point over the last couple of years the tables were placed behind a Sport80 login adding hurdles archers must go through to obtain them. As part of this update we agreed with Archery GB that the tables will once again be open-access and directly available to all as PDFs on the Archery GB website:
I’ll add here a plea not to reproduce the tables on your own website and instead to link to those available from Archery GB or official sources ArcheryCalculator.co.uk and ArcheryGeekery.co.uk . These will be updated over time, as was the case here, whilst self-hosting copies only risks falling out of sync and confusing your members and the wider population.
Versioning
To help users ensure that they are using the correct tables we have adopted
a
versioning scheme
that will be applied to a particular set of scores/tables and PDFs.
This takes the form of the year of release followed by the number of the
release in that year, so the current set of tables is 2026-1.
If you look at the new PDFs linked above you will see this information in the bottom left.
Summary
The Archery GB classification tables have been updated to account for AGB and WA rules changes, ensure consistency across tables when calculating scores, and to prevent the occurrence of duplicate scores.
These new tables are now active and available on the Archery GB website and ArcheryCalculator.co.uk . The code to produce the new scores/tables is available through archeryutils .
References
- Archery GB’s guidance for the participation of transgender archers policy
- Documents from WA Congress 2023
- Minutes of WA Congress 2023
- Book 2, Section 4.5 of the World Archery Rulebook
Note
The updates to the classification tables were carried out as part of a volunteer team/working group for Archery GB. Any views and opinions in this article are mine, and do not reflect those of Archery GB or other volunteers.