At the World Archery 3D Championships in Yankton, there are no distance signs beside the targets. Archers must read the terrain, judge the size and distance of the 3D animal ahead of them, and make the shot. For Traditional Bow and Longbow competitors, there is even less equipment to help.
The World 3D Championships occupy an unusual place in international archery. They are the only World Archery major where Traditional Bow and Longbow are contested, alongside Barebow and Compound.
Traditional Bow is deliberately simple. Stabilisers, external weights, plungers and clickers are not permitted, and the riser must use a wood-based construction. Unlike Barebow archers using stringwalking, Traditional Bow competitors maintain a consistent anchor position, making accurate distance judgement particularly important.
British archer Steven Allam explained in Yankton that he uses the tip of his arrow as a reference, changing the visual gap according to his estimate of the target distance. For the unsighted divisions, targets can be placed out to 30 metres.
Longbow removes another layer of assistance. There is no elevated arrow rest, stabiliser or stringwalking, while wooden arrows with feather fletching are required. Because individual wooden shafts are never perfectly identical, assembling a consistent set of arrows becomes part of the challenge before an archer even reaches the course.
After two days of qualification, Denmark's Zibrandt Christensen leads Traditional Bow Men with 913 points. Austria's Claudia Weinberger leads Traditional Bow Women with 804. In Longbow, Denmark's Klaes Andersen heads the men's field with 838, while France's Cecile Lafaurie leads the women with 730.
One of Yankton's more unusual stories is Italian longbow archer Iuana Bassi. At 74, she is competing at another World 3D Championship after winning world silver in 2022 and collecting international medals in Longbow and Traditional Bow for more than a decade.
Traditional Bow and Longbow are modern competitive divisions governed by precise rules rather than attempts to recreate historical archery. But their character remains recognisably traditional: when sights, stabilisers, range markers and other aids disappear, more of the problem is left to the archer — judge the distance, understand the bow, trust the arrow and make the shot.
Qualification showed who handled that challenge best over two days. The knockout rounds will determine who can keep doing it when every arrow matters.