Modern Competitive Archery

Competitive archery involves shooting arrows at a target for accuracy from a set distance or distances. This is the most popular form of archery and is called 'Target Archery'.

While people have no doubt been competing with bows for millennia, the first recorded archery competitions began around 1583 in England. Archery has been an Olympic sport since 1900, with some interruptions. Recently the Koreans have dominated the event, especially the women's divisions. At the Sydney 2000 games, the Korean women won bronze, silver and gold in the individual competition and won gold in the team event. The Korean men have not fared so well in Olympic competition but still produce good results. In 2004, every record in the men's and women's open divisions were held by Korea. It should be noted however, that the Koreans concentrate primarily to outdoor competition, particularly the 70 m Olympic distance. Indoor distances tend to be dominated by European and American archers.

Modern competitive archery is governed by the International Archery Association, abbreviated FITA (Fédération Internationale de Tir à l'Arc). Olympic rules are derived from FITA rules.

Rules

Archery competitions may be held indoors or outdoors. Indoor distances are 18 m and 25 m. Outdoor distances range from 30 m to 90 m (for senior archers, juniors can shoot closer distances), with 70 m being used in the Olympic Games. Most outdoor competitions consist of several distances.

Competition is divided into ends. An archer shoots between 3 and 6 arrows per end, depending on the type of round. After each end, the competitors walk to the target to score and retrieve their arrows. There are 10 ends of 3 arrows in a round of indoor competition. Outdoor competition varies, but outdoor rounds generally involve more arrows being shot. All competitors must wait for the command to shoot and retrieve.

Archers have a set time limit in which to shoot their arrows. For indoor competition, this is 2 minutes. Signalling devices such as lights and flags inform the archers when time is up. Since archery involves the use of potentially lethal weapons, much attention is paid to order and safety.

Scoring

Targets are marked with 10 evenly spaced concentric rings, which have score values from 1 through 10 assigned to them. In addition, there is an inner 10 ring, sometimes called the X ring because of the small cross printed at the centre. This becomes the 10 ring in some compound competitions. Usually it serves as a tiebreaker with the archer scoring the most number of X's winning. In FITA archery, targets are coloured as follows:

• 1 ring & 2 ring - white
• 3 ring & 4 ring - black
• 5 ring & 6 ring - blue
• 7 ring & 8 ring - red
• 9 ring & 10 ring - gold

Archers score each end by adding the scores for their arrows. Line cutters are awarded the higher score. Values scored by each arrow are recorded on a score sheet and must be written in descending order (e.g. if an archer scores 5, 7, 6, 10, 9, 8, this must be recorded as 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5.).

However, in the imperial method of scoring, the coloured bands are counted 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. The lowest score is for all the white on the target face and the 9 for any gold. Arrows are shot in 'ends' of three with six arrows being released before each count. When a dozen arrows have been shot, the scorer will add up the miss rates, the number of golds and the total score. This will then be repeated a certain number of times depending on the tournament type.

During competition, there are usually at least two archers per target. This is to allow for "double scoring", a system where two archers will record and sum all scores on individual sheets. This is done to prevent any errors. During and before scoring, no one is allowed to touch the arrows. After scoring, each hole is marked before arrows are retrieved. In the event of a "pass through" (the arrow passes straight through the target) or "bouncer" (arrow hits the target and bounces out), points may be awarded to an unmarked hole.

Different rounds and distances use different size target faces. Common sizes (and example rounds they are used in) are:

• 40 cm (18m FITA Indoor)
• 60 cm (25m FITA Indoor)
• 80 cm (30m and 50m FITA)
• 122 cm (70m and 90m FITA)

122 cm faces are used in Olympic competition. There are also versions of the 40cm and 60cm targets known as the "3 Spot". The targets contain 3 instances of the inner 5 rings of the 40cm and 60cm faces arranged in a line or an equilateral triangle.