Early on this year I decided to attend the 2022 USA Archery Target Nationals in the Men’s Senior Barebow division. Now that it’s finished up, I’m writing this post to cover details for others to benefit from if they attend in the future (regardless of division). It was a really great time.
Table of Contents
Signing Up
Signing up is accomplished by logging into the USA Archery member login area: https://auth.sport80.com and then clicking on the USA Archery link. I’d give the full link to the USA Archery login but the URL is complicated and is designed strangely. Once logged in you’ll go to the Tournaments section and find the USA Archery Target Nationals tournament, prefaced by which nationals it is numerically. In 2023 it will be the 139th Target Nationals. Be sure that you are signing up for Target Nationals and not JOAD Target Nationals.
If I recall correctly, in 2022 the cost of Target Nationals for a single entrant was $195.00. The tournament is usually held in early to mid August, and in 2022 it was held from 8/10 to 8/13. One had to register by July 20th or pay an extra $30 for a late registration by 7/27.
Location
The location of Target Nationals changes, depending upon the year. In 2022 the tournament was held in Malvern, PA at the Greater Chester Valley Sports Complex. The 2023 Target Nationals will be held in the same location. Other locations are usually in Virginia or Ohio. If you’re not quite sure about going, when the location is relatively close to you then you should give serious consideration to attending the tournament because it may be a few years before it’s back in a favorable location for where you live.
Lodging
In 2022 the official ”host hotel” was the Sheraton Great Valley at $135 per night. This of course doesn’t mean one has to stay at this hotel. I stayed at an Airbnb with my archery pal Mike Comperchio and it was really great. We rented an entire house that was less than 15 minutes from the tournament location, and the house was immaculate and spacious.
Format
There are actually two tournaments involved: a cumulative-scoring tournament called ”Target Nationals” and an elimination tournament called the “US Open”. Target Nationals is first, followed by the US Open. All scoring is viewable on Between Ends by clicking on the Target Nationals tournament for the given year. The Target Nationals scores are listed under the “Qualifications” section, and the US Open scores/matches are listed under the ”US Open” section. Just to be clear, when you sign up for Target Nationals you are signing up for both tournaments.
Checking In
When you arrive at the field the first time, you’ll want to check in with organizers to let them know you’re there and to have your equipment inspected. You can do this on Wednesday (practice day) or before the first qualification round on Thursday. I was told they begin accepting check-ins on Thursday at 7 AM. The check-in location will be at the main tent on the field your tournament targets are on (50 meters for barebow and compound and 70 meters for olympic recurve).
Target Nationals
Target Nationals is shot across two days (Thursday and Friday), each day consisting of two 36 arrow rounds for a total of 72 arrows on each day, and for a total across the two days of 144 arrows. The archer in each division that has the highest 144 arrow score across the two days wins Target Nationals.
For the first day of Target Nationals, archers are randomly assigned targets. You can discover your lane assignment when you check in or on Between Ends beginning on the Tuesday during the week of the tournament (and also to know which archers you’ll be shooting with on the same target). After all scores are in for the first day, archers are assigned targets for the second day based upon their score. For example, if you are a male, senior barebow archer and you have the highest score in this division after the first day, you will shoot on the same target as the second highest, third highest, and fourth highest male, senior barebow archers. The next four highest scoring archers will shoot together on the 2nd target, and so on.
Scoring is done on both paper and computer tablet. You can refresh the Between Ends screen while shooting to see how everyone else is doing, score-wise. I chose to shut my phone off completely, though that was sort of a mistake because I occasionally wanted to know the time and I didn’t have a watch on.
US Open
The place you finish in the Target Nationals determines your seeding for the US Open. The US Open is an elimination format, using set points exactly like Olympic Recurve in the Olympics. The US Open has a ”cut line” that in 2022 for Men’s Senior Barebow was 64 archers. Fortunately, there were 61 archers registered, so everyone made the cut. But, if numbers continue growing there will come a time when not everyone makes the US Open cut.
For example, if you finish in first place for Target Nationals, you will either get a bye or you will go up against the 64th place archer. Second place will either get a bye or compete against the 63rd place archer, and so on. Whether you get a bye or not depends upon the number of archers. In 2022 there were 56 archers that shot in Senior Men’s Barebow (61 registered, but 5 didn’t make the trip), so eight archers received a bye. This allowed 48 archers to shoot in the first round, which cut down the number of archers to 32 (24 archers advancing after winning the first round, plus the 8 archers that had a bye). From 32 the cut down was to 16, then 8, then 4, then 2, and then the gold medalist is the last one standing. If 54 archers had shot in the division in the tournament, they’d have given a bye to the top 10 (leaving a cut down after the first round from 44 to 22, and then adding back in the 10 archers with a bye to get to 32). If 61 archers had shot in the tournament, 3 archers would get a bye so that 58 shooters cut down to 29, and then the three byes get added back to make 32 for the second round.
Pairs of shooters compete against one another for set points, three arrows each set. You’ll shoot your three arrows while your competitor shoots his/hers, and the archer with the most points in that end gets 2 set points. If the archers tie each archer gets 1 set point. The first archer to 6 set points wins the match and moves on. If both archers end up with 5 points, then a single arrow ”shoot off” is conducted and the archer with the closest arrow to center wins the match. Shoot offs are fun to watch for everyone at the tournament.
Until the quarter finals, pairs of archers shoot on the same target. One you are in the quarter finals each archer shoots on his/her own target, one archer’s target being beside the other’s. I can’t say with certainty, but I think the shooting line is arranged so there is an open space between you and your competitor (once you make it to quarter finals). For example, if you are shooting in lane 45A, your competitor will shoot in 46A. If you are in 45B, your competitor will shoot in 46B.
Eventually, two competitors are left in each ”senior” division and these archers shoot later in the day with a crowd watching and broadcast live on YouTube. Master’s divisions do not take place in this shooting, though they do finish their matches to determine who is the gold, silver, and bronze winners.
Mixed Team Competition
There is a fun, mixed team competition held on Thursday at 2:30 in the afternoon, an hour or two after the first round of Target Nationals. You sign up for this via the USA Archery website. To do so, one of the archers will need the USA Archery account number and birth date of the other archer so they can add this archer to their own account. When adding the account you’ll be asked if you only want to add the account for team competitions, and this is what you’ll choose. After adding the archer you can then enter you and this archer into the mixed team competition, giving your team a name. I think it was $5 per archer.
You and an archer of the opposite gender, in the same class (recurve, compound, or barebow), can shoot with each other in an elimination tournament using set points, similar to the US Open format but mixed teams instead. Each archer shoots two arrows in each set. Each team has 80 seconds to shoot all four arrows (two arrows each, meaning 20 seconds an arrow), and archers must be behind a line that is 1 meter away from the shooting line until the signal to start the set. When the signal occurs, the first archer on the team steps up to the shooting line without making any motion to pull the arrow from their quiver until they are ready to shoot. The other archer must stay behind the 1 meter line until the first archer returns to the 1 meter line. Archers can shoot one arrow before returning to the 1 meter line (and therefore will have to return to shoot another arrow after their partner shoots), or two. Seeding for this fun tournament is based upon the combined qualification scores of each archer on each team.
Each team faces another team in a match. Each match is won by the first team that earns five points. If your team wins a set by having a higher combined score than the other team, your team earns 2 points. If each team ties, each team earns a single point. If both teams earn five points, a ”shoot off” occurs in which each archer on each team shoots a single arrow, each team given 40 seconds to shoot these two arrows. If the shoot off ends in a tie for points, the team with the closest arrow to the center wins.
You are given two practice rounds in which you practice as a team, shooting just like you would as a team once your team shoots for real. If you have earned a bye in the first round, you can continue practicing as a team by shooting the first three sets of the first round. During this practice your team will shoot as though it was participating in the first round. Once the first three sets are over, you must wait for the first round to finish.
Team Competition
The team competition occurs on Friday afternoon, after the final round of Target Nationals (i.e., the final qualification round). The format of this tournament is very similar to the mixed team tournament, detailed above, and signing up is done the same way. The differences are:
- Each team must be of the same gender.
- There are three members on each team instead of two.
- Each team shoots six arrows each set (two arrows each archer).
- Each team has 120 seconds to shoot all six arrows (20 seconds per arrow, just like mixed teams).
- The first team in a match to earn six set points wins the match (instead of five points as in mixed teams).
High Level Schedule
Wednesday: Practice rounds in morning and afternoon.
Thursday: First two rounds of Target Nationals qualifications in the morning and mixed team competition in afternoon.
Friday: Second two rounds of Target Nationals qualifications in the morning and team competition in afternoon.
Saturday: US Open in morning and Senior division finals for each division in the afternoon.
Detailed Schedule
- Wednesday:
- Check in, bow inspection, and practice from either 9 AM to 12 PM, or 1 PM to 4 PM.
- If you can’t make it to practice on Wednesday, you can check in and have your bow inspected starting at 7 AM on Thursday.
- You can also set up a tent at this time if you’d like, behind the tents supplied by USA Archery (more on this later).
- Practice is held wherever you will be shooting in the tournament. Olympic recurve shooters will shoot wherever the 70 meter targets are, and barebow and compound shooters will shoot on the 50 meter target field.
- Depending upon the tournament location, there may be a single field or multiple fields.
- When you get to the practice range and are ready to shoot, you can shoot at any open target, though some people may want to shoot on their assigned target. I’m not really sure why people feel the need to practice on their assigned target, but to avoid conflict at a tournament I’d step out of the way for such a person and move to another target if I happened to be shooting on ”their” target and they would like to. On the other hand, if there are three archers present that are all shooting on the same, assigned target, they can’t all shoot at the same time because practice is kept to a single line of shooting and only two people can shoot at the same target at the same time. I’d much rather the rule be ”Shoot on any open target you can find” but since this isn’t the case be prepared for someone to come along and claim “their” target during practice.
- Thursday:
- Blank bale practice from 7:45 AM to 8:10 AM. Blank bale is shot on your assigned target, though you can also move around to others if you can make it work. You’ll shoot at a target with an existing face on it, or you can remove the face.
- Once blank bale is finished you’ll put an official target on the target mat, pinning the face on the mat at the top and bottom and the two sides.
- 1st qualification round starts at 8:15 AM, consisting of two practice ends and 6 scoring ends of 6 arrows each. I didn’t mark the actual start time, but it seemed a little later than 8:15 to me.
- Practice ends are the same amount of time as scoring ends: 4 minutes. You can shoot as many arrows as you’d like, within the four minutes, during practice ends. There are two practice ends.
- A clipboard with scoring cards and a computer tablet will be dropped off for your target, near the shooting line, before qualifications start. You will carry this down to the target either during practice or when retrieving arrows after the first end of qualifications. There will also be a name tag on the clipboard for each archer on the target, and you are to place this name tag somewhere visible on your quiver. I keep a small binder paper clip (you can look up ”binder paper clip” on google images if you are unsure of what a binder paper clip is) attached to my quiver (via a carabiner) for this purpose. Others stuck one or two of their spare arrows through the paper to keep it in place.
- Shooting continues straight through, with no breaks, from the first qualification round to the second.
- In 2022 shooting was finished on each day of Target Nationals somewhere around 12:30 PM. Remember to use Between Ends to see all the standings after shooting finishes. Also, after the first day finishes, Between Ends will have your lane assignment listed for the following day, though you can also find this out at the main tent on your shooting field the next day.
- Mixed team competition starts at 2:30 PM. You can sign up for mixed teams via the USA Archery website, beforehand, or you can sign up in person on Wednesday during practice rounds. Perhaps you have no one to shoot with in mixed teams until you get there and meet a few people, so signing up on the spot can be helpful.
- Friday: Repeat of Thursday. Once scoring finishes you’ll know all the official and complete standings for Target Nationals. Award ceremony occurs soon after scoring finishes.
- Saturday:
- You will learn your assigned target lane either via Between Ends (in the US Open section) or when you get to the field and check the lane assignment sheets (attached to a target by the main tent).
- Blank bale practice from 7:45 AM to 8:10 AM. Blank bale is shot on your assigned target, though you can also move around to others if you can make it work. You’ll shoot at a target with an existing face on it, or you can remove the face.
- Once blank bale is finished you’ll put an official target on the target mat, pinning the face on the mat at the top and bottom and the two sides.
- 1st elimination round starts at 8:15 AM, consisting of two practice ends and then set matches as described above in the ”US Open” section.
- Practice ends are the same amount of time as US Open scoring ends: 2 minutes. You can shoot as many arrows as you’d like, within the two minutes, during practice ends. There are three practice ends.
- A clipboard with scoring cards and a computer tablet will be dropped off for your target, near the shooting line, before the US Open starts. You will carry this down to the target either during practice or when retrieving arrows after the first end of qualifications.
- You will shoot with your competitor on the same target until the quarter finals (the round of eight). Once quarter finals begins, you will shoot on your own target and your competitor will shoot on the target next to yours.
- If you receive a bye, you can practice on your assigned target while others shoot their official first round. Your assigned target will be with other archers that also received a bye. If you receive a bye, keep your scoresheet on the clipboard and bring the clipboard to the target you practice on.
- Your scoresheet will tell you which targets you shoot on for each round, if you continue winning. When you win a round you will take your scoresheet with you to your next assigned target and put it on a clipboard.
- Shooting continues all the way through the bronze medal match for all Senior divisions and gold medal matches for Master’s divisions. All gold medal matches for Senior divisions occur on the same field in the same lanes, starting at 2:30 PM with olympic recurve, then compound, and then barebow. These matches are attended by spectators and are filmed by multiple cameras and broadcast live on YouTube. Winners are interviewed by Competition Archery Media.
Field Layout, Tents, Etc.
I can only speak for the Greater Chester Valley Sports Complex location because I have not shot in the Virginia or Ohio locations, but there was ample room. Obviously, as far as shooting goes, targets are correctly spaced at the correct distance away from the shooting line for each division. But, prior to the tournament, I wondered about how the supplied tents were laid out, where would we put bags and coolers, and could we set up our own tent in addition to the supplied tents? Here are some pictures and thoughts:
You’ll note in the above picture that the supplied tents have chairs and tables in them. This works out well for archers, as they don’t need to bring their own chair(s). The tables work relatively well, too, because they don’t take up a lot of the tent space, and it’s nice to have something to place things on from time to time. Though Mike and I brought a tent, we didn’t end up using it, instead favoring on setting up our equipment behind the supplied tents and leaving our remaining gear and cooler behind the tables—there was plenty of room for doing it this way.
You can also see the space between the tents and the waiting line. It was very spacious, and this worked out very well. You could stand in that space to watch people shoot, there was plenty of space for those that brought two bows to place them, and it made for a very comfortable setting.
Here is what it looked like behind the supplied tents:
You can see the area behind the supplied tents had plenty of space. You can see in the above picture that some people left “stuff” right behind the tents, and others left stuff within their own tent that they brought from home. Because Mike and I were together and traveling relatively light, we didn’t end up setting up our tent and this worked for us. Next time, maybe we have others with us and maybe we decide to set up a ”central, home-base” tent. There was plenty of room to do as you wished.
Vendors
In the middle of the two fields (50 meter and 70 meter) there was food, a water ice stand (water ice is similar to what we call ”slush” in my neck of the woods, a Lancaster Archery Supply truck, and a shirt vendor. The water ice was perfect during the hot, sunny weather. Lancaster Archery Supply’s truck was truly impressive, as it seemed to have just about every piece of equipment one could possibly ask for, other than risers and limbs, I think (I say ”I think” because I wasn’t really looking for risers or limbs, so though I don’t remember seeing any it is possible they were in the truck or in their tent space near the truck). Really, if you are in a pinch and you need a piece of equipment, there is a very high chance that they will have it in their truck. The way they have the truck so, so tightly organized was impressive.
The shirt vendor was pretty cool. There were a number of different kinds of shirts and they were all very nice, but a great touch is that the vendor made it on the spot for you. This allowed him to, if you paid for it, place a list of Target Nationals archer’s names on the back of the shirt. Because there were too many names for the entire tournament to put on the back of a single shirt, they had the names alphabetized in three different groups. If you bought a shirt for yourself, you could find your name in one of the groups and elect to have that list of names put on your shirt. It’s a really a great idea and nice touch.
I’m already looking forward to going back next year!