Competition experience and years of training in the heat reduce the effect of heat on scores

The summary today

There is a single study, the same one that measures the fall in scores in the heat: 35,954 performances by 3,196 Chinese professional archers in qualifying rounds from 2010 to 2016, with each archer compared against themselves. Above a heat index of 34 degrees the average arrow loses 0.82 points, and two things reduce the loss. The first is competition experience: simply moving out of the least experienced quarter of the sample, measured in arrows shot at earlier events, cuts the loss by 0.33 points, about 40 per cent. The second is long-term familiarity with the climate: archers who train in southern China, where scorching days are far more frequent, lose 0.296 points less than those who train in the north, and competing in one's home province reduces the loss by 0.348 points, about 30 per cent. Heat met in the months before the event, on the other hand, gives no protection: hot days one, three or twelve months earlier have small coefficients that are almost never significant, which is why the claim speaks of years rather than weeks. Three limitations remain. It is one observational study; home events make up 5.6 per cent of the observations and also bring less travel and the support of family and friends, as the authors themselves point out; and the 70 per cent of the loss offset that the authors obtain by adding experience and climate together combines two different models. One study in favour on archers: reported.

Also phrased as: "getting used to heat at competitions"; "heat acclimatisation in archery"; "experience and heat"; "shooting in the heat"; "training in the heat before an event"

Evidence

• 2021
  For Archers Published later

  Chinese professional archers in outdoor qualifying rounds from 2010 to 2016, with a fixed effect for each archer; experience is the number of arrows shot at all earlier events. More experience softens the loss above a heat index of 26 degrees, and the effect is largest above 34. With a dummy for the least experienced quarter of the observations, those past the 25th percentile lose 0.33 fewer points per arrow in extreme heat, about 40 per cent of the 0.82 lost on average at the sample's mean wind speed (Table 7): according to the authors, adaptation through experience becomes effective quickly.

  Adaptation and the distributional effects of heat: Evidence from professional archery competitions · Yun Qiu, Jinhua Zhao

• 2021
  For Archers Published later

  Long-term adaptation, Table 8: archers who train in southern China, where scorching days are far more frequent, lose 0.296 fewer points per arrow above a heat index of 34 degrees than those who train in the north, 24.6 per cent of the loss; competing in one's home province reduces it by 0.348 points, 29.8 per cent. Only 5.6 per cent of the observations are home events, and the authors warn in a footnote that competing at home also means less travel and the support of family and friends, so the climate effect may be smaller. Adding this 30 per cent to the 40 from experience, they reach more than 70 per cent of the loss offset, but the two estimates come from different models.

  Adaptation and the distributional effects of heat: Evidence from professional archery competitions · Yun Qiu, Jinhua Zhao

• 2021
  Context Archers Published later

  Recent heat does not count: for 21,251 observations in which the training city is known, the authors count the days in each heat band over the 1, 3 and 12 months before the event and interact them with the heat on the day. Most coefficients are small and not significant: over less than a year, they write, the scope for acclimatisation is limited. This is the finding that separates years of familiarity from a few weeks of heat.

  Adaptation and the distributional effects of heat: Evidence from professional archery competitions · Yun Qiu, Jinhua Zhao

Status history

1. 2021 Reported The first and only data arrive within the study that measures the fall in scores in the heat across 3,196 Chinese professional archers. Above a heat index of 34 degrees the average loss is 0.82 points per arrow: moving out of the least experienced quarter of the sample takes away 0.33 of them, years of training in the hotter south 0.296, competing in one's home province 0.348. Heat met in the months before the event gives no protection. One observational study, however large: reported.

Related

Related articles

• Wind and weather conditions in archery: how to read and manage themHow far the wind moves an arrow and why, how many points it costs, how to read and correct for it, and what the data say about rain, cold and heat.
• Shooting in the heat: how many points go, who loses most and what reduces the lossHow many points heat costs in competition, where the loss begins, who loses most and what reduced it across 3,196 professional archers.

Research lines

• 102 studiesFrom the total on the scorecard to the arrow's coordinates
• 21 studiesDistance, group size and score

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