Archery

The first recorded archery competition was in Finsbury, England, in 1583 where 3,000 archers participated. Thanks to a passion for the sport by English royalty, it grew in popularity. The first international Archery competition was held between English and French archers in 1900, the same year that archery was first included in the Olympic Games. It was a feature of the Olympic Games several times from 1900 to 1920 but then disappeared from the Olympic program for more than 50 years. Archery reappeared at the 1972 Olympic Games. It is a long-time Pan American sport as well.

Men and women compete in Olympic archery in both individual and team events. Competitors shoot from a standing position with the aim of landing their arrow in the central circle, just 12 cm in diameter, of a target face that is 122 cm in diameter. The target, which is 70 metres away from the archer, consists of 10 coloured concentric circles known as ‘rings’. An arrow in the innermost circle, also known as the "bull's eye", is worth 10 points. An arrow in the outermost circle is worth one point. An arrow that lands successfully between these two circles is worth two to nine points, depending on which ring it hits.

All Olympic match play is sudden death and there is no repechage or consolation round for those archers eliminated from the 1/64, 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4 or medal rounds. From 64 archers, three will win medals. Arrows are shot in two six-arrow ends in four minutes until the 1/8 finals when three-arrow ends are shot in two minutes. Medal rounds are shot in alternating fashion between the two archers, each having 30 seconds per arrow to shoot each of the three arrows. The team round is contested by 16 teams of three, with six arrows in total shot in less than two minutes.

Athletes

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  • geoffrey

    geoffrey - 2 weeks, 6 days ago

    i have been doing archery sinc i was 13 and want to continu and i am wondering where and how i go about qualifing and trainig with the canadin team and what i need to qualifyto get on the team
    my email is geoffreyservice@hotmail.com

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