Archery Explained: Useful Information on the Sport of Bow and Arrows

Archery is an Olympic kind of sport, in which athletes compete in who happens to be more accurate in using bows and arrows. An event is won by an athlete or a team that has managed to earn the highest number of points according to the regulations that govern the event. There are both archery tournaments both for men and women. The given sport has some common features with darts in the way that it is necessary to hit the target from a certain distance in the two. However, there are still some peculiarities that make archery a unique kind of sport that does not remind any other.

General Rules

All the official archery competitions should take place either on open air or in a building. Here, every athlete is given sets of either three or six arrows. According to the official requirements, an athlete has two minutes to deliver three arrows and four minutes for six arrows.

All the official competitions begin with the qualifying stage to eliminate the worst athletes. Then, an Olympic system is applied to determine a winner among all who have passed the qualifying stage. This very system is also applied at World and Europe Championships.

All the arrows are sent to the officially approved targets. The archery targets are made of a piece of paper bearing the circles of different diameters and colors. These targets are adjusted to special stamps that are made of firm materials to prevent the arrows from coming through them. The target dimensions depend on the distance, from which the athletes deliver the arrows.

Within the circle with number 10, there is another circle also known as the bullseye that is twice smaller than the previous one. This small circle is required to solve some disputes, if, for example, there are two athletes with an equal number of points earned. In such a case, these athletes can send one arrow each, and the victory will be awarded by a player, whose arrow happens to be closer to the bullseye. Also, it is this small circle that the archery world records are based on.

Distances

When it comes to indoor archery, distances of 18, 30, and 50 meters are applied both for men and women. For outdoor archery, however, the distances can be different for male and female athletes. Thus, men send their arrows from distances of 30, 50, 70, and 90 meters, while women deal with archery from 30-, 50, and 70-meter distances only.

The Olympic Games, in their turn, witness archery competitions from a 70-meter distance without any variations.

Equipment

Bow

The most important piece of equipment for archery is understandably the bow. When it comes to official tournaments, bows of two different types can be used:

1. Recurve bow. Its tensile load is about 15-20 kilograms, which makes it possible to send the arrows at a speed of 240 km/h. It is this bow that is used by the athletes at the Olympic Games.
2. Compound bow. These pieces of equipment have a special device to present a more correct acceleration for the arrows. In addition, this device makes it easier for an athlete to draw the bow. Here, a tensile load is close to 25-30 kilograms, while the speed of the arrows reaches a point of 320 km/h. The bow that is ready to be used usually weighs 3.5-4.5 kilograms.

Arrows

Modern arrows for archery are compound ones consisting of the following parts:

• shaft;
• fletching;
• arrowhead;
• nock.

These items are extremely important for athletes and for their results. The arrows should meet a few individual characteristics, with the arms’ length being the most significant among them. It means that the arrows are manufactured individually for every professional archer. These items are carried in a special thing also known as a quiver for arrows.

Release Aid

A release aid is a special device to make a process of sending the arrows easier and safer. With its assistance, an archer grips the bowstring, which reduces the level of its deformation. At the same time, the given device contributes to more stable delivering the arrows.

Grip Putty

It is a special piece of equipment that is used by archers to protect their forearms from the string bow beats while sending the arrows.

Judging System at Competitions

There should be at least three judges near the stamps with targets. Usually, one judge watches seven stamps. The list of responsibilities the officials should perform consists of the following:

• checking the dimensions of fields, targets, stamps;
• checking the correctness of athletes’ equipment;
• watching the process of sending the arrows by archers;
• recording the results;
• solving the disputes emerging;
• breaking the competitions when it is necessary (for example, when there is a danger to health or life of judges, athletes or spectators);
• processing complaints.

Competitions and Governing Body

There are a few archery competitions that take place all year round. They are as follows:

1. The Olympic Games – it is the most prestigious events with archery competitions; it takes place every four years.
2. Archery World Championships – it is an indoor archery competition that is held on odd-numbered years.
3. Archery World Cup – it is another indoor archery competition that is held every year.

The World Archery Federation (FITA) is the highest governing body in the world of archery. It unites 140 national federations. The federation was created in 1931.

History

Nobody knows when and where the bow was invented for the first time. Nevertheless, it is an accepted belief that people used the bows for hunting purposes in the late Stone Age. It was because of the bows that people managed to eat flesh.

About 3 thousand years ago, the bows started being used as a weapon to kill other warriors, rather than animals only. Past archers were highly appreciated because they were able to hit the target from a long distance. It was at the period when the bows were replaced by guns when archery as a kind of sport appeared and started its development.

1900 witnessed the first official archery competitions. It happened at the second Olympic Games. Until 1972, this discipline had been considered to be optional meaning it was a part of the Olympics in some years, in others – it did not. Despite the competitions, there was no international organization that could govern these competitions. It happened in Poland in 1931 only when the FITA mentioned above was created. It was this organization that would develop the archery rules.

In the middle 1980s, dueling competitions were introduced to make the sport more interesting and exciting for spectators. Team competitions firstly took place in 1988. Since 2000, archery rules have been constantly changing; that is why every Olympic Games see archery competitions governed by a different set of rules.