Overview

Archery is truly a historic sport and has roots dating back to its use as a weapon of hunting and war in ancient times.

Archery first entered the Olympic programme at Paris 1900 and in 1904 it became one of the first Olympic sports to include women. It was then off the programme for 52 years before returning permanently in 1972.

In 1992, head-to-head match play was introduced in an effort to make the event a more exciting spectacle. This vastly improved the sport from a spectator perspective and also helped the sport’s ratings on television.

Modern Olympic archery has four events, with men and women competing in both individual and team events. The team event was introduced at the 1988 Seoul Games for the first time.

At the Olympic Games, archers shoot at targets 70 metres away. The target is 1.22 metres in diameter and marked with 10 concentric rings. Individual archers compete in head-to-head matches in single elimination after being ranked from 1 to 64 during qualifications. In each contest both archers shoot 12 arrows and only the winner moves on. Teams are made up of three archers, and team events follow the same competition format as individual events.