The Yankton 2026 World Archery 3D Championships sees individual and team competition in the familiar compound and barebow classes. Standard recurve setups are not part of these world championships.
Less familiar to archery fans around the world are the traditional bow and longbow classes, both of which could be described as modern expressions of traditional archery, with their own specific rules. The 3D world championships are the only major tournament for these bowstyles governed by World Archery.
We spoke to Great Britain’s Steven Allam, competing at his first worlds after appearing at the European 3D Championships last year, and asked him to explain the traditional bow class, known as “trad” and formerly called the instinctive class.
“The trad class is truly ‘bare’ bow. Nothing can be attached to the bow except a simple plastic rest. No weights, stabilisers, plunger, clickers – nothing! The riser must have a wood-based construction, but can use ILF limbs of any type. Risers are now custom-made and internally weighted, but this must be done during the manufacturing process,” said Allam.
So how do you aim a traditional bow?
“For most shots we are using the tip of the arrow to aim, placing that at a specific gap above or below the target in order to hit it. The gaps gradually increase as the distance to the target increases, reaching the maximum gap at the height of the arrow trajectory and then reducing to nothing at the point-on distance, which is the distance where the arrow hits the target when you are pointing the arrow at the target.”
“For me, that’s around 32 metres, so my maximum gap is when a target is about 16 metres away.”
The longest distance unsighted bows shoot at the World Archery 3D Championships is 30 metres, while compound bows shoot at up to 45 metres.
