Archery

Archery is the sport of shooting arrows from a bow at a target, and the form seen at the Olympic Games is called target archery. Competitors shoot at stationary circular targets at fixed distances, and the international standard for the Olympic recurve bow is 70 meters at a 122-centimeter target face. Archery returned to the Olympic program in 1972, under rules standardized by the sport’s international federation.

History of archery

The federation now called World Archery was founded in 1931 as FITA in Lviv, which was then called Lwów and lay in Poland and is now in Ukraine. It was created to standardize international rules and to bring archery back to the Olympics. The first World Championships, in 1931 and 1932, used the same format: 36 arrows at 50 meters on a 120-centimeter face, then 24 arrows at 50 meters and 12 at 30 meters on 80-centimeter faces.

Separate formats for men and women arrived at the 1933 championships in London, in the United Kingdom. Targets of about 122 centimeters, or 48 inches, were used at most distances, and that size is the origin of the standard face used today. In 1934 men shot at four distances of 90, 70, 50 and 30 meters, and women at three: 70, 50 and 30 meters.

In 1955 the 1440 Round became the standard for World Championships. Men shot 36 arrows at each of four distances, with a maximum score of 1,440, and longer distances used 122-centimeter faces while shorter ones used 80-centimeter faces. Under these standardized rules archery returned to the Olympics at Munich in 1972.

Rules and how archery is played

The standard target has five colors and ten scoring rings. The inner gold ring scores 10 points and the outer white ring scores 1, with each color covering two rings: yellow for 10 and 9, red for 8 and 7, blue for 6 and 5, black for 4 and 3, and white for 2 and 1. An arrow that misses the target scores nothing.

In a modern competition, each archer first shoots a qualification round of 72 arrows. The scores seed the head-to-head brackets, and up to 104 archers advance to match play. Events are held for individuals, for mixed teams of one man and one woman using the same type of bow, and for teams of three archers of the same gender and bow type.

Recurve and barebow archers use the set system. In an individual match, each set is three arrows, a set win is worth two points and a draw is worth one, and the first archer to reach six set points wins. Mixed team matches use sets of four arrows and team matches use sets of six, with five set points needed to win.

Compound archers use a cumulative score instead. Over 15 arrows in an individual match, 16 in a mixed team match and 24 in a team match, the higher total wins. If an individual match is tied, each archer shoots one arrow and the arrow closest to the center wins, and a judge may call another shoot-off if the arrows cannot be separated.

Equipment and venues

International competition uses two main types of bow, the recurve and the compound, while barebow has its own international rules. The divisions shoot at different distances and at different target faces.

Recurve archers shoot at 70 meters at a 122-centimeter face, and the innermost ring measures 12.2 centimeters. Compound archers shoot at 50 meters at an 80-centimeter face, where the 10 ring measures 8 centimeters and the outer four rings are usually removed, leaving yellow, red and blue. Barebow archers shoot at 50 meters at the larger face.

The sport is shot at targets that stay still, and distances can run up to 90 meters. Because the rules fix the face size and the shooting distance, an archer’s scores can be compared with those of competitors in any other country.

Governing bodies and major competitions

World Archery, the successor to FITA, is the international federation and writes the rules for the discipline. Target archery is the discipline used at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and compound competitions are held at the World Games.

The World Archery Championships are held every two years and are considered the sport’s top event. The federation also runs the Hyundai Archery World Cup and the World Archery Youth Championships, which use the same target archery formats.

Records and notable moments

The competition format has changed repeatedly, and these changes mark the main turning points of the sport. From 1987 to 1991, the Grand FITA Round was used at three World Championships and at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, with the top archers cut progressively through elimination rounds. Barcelona used an elimination bracket in 1992.

The 1993 World Championships in Antalya introduced match play, in which the top 32 archers shot 12-arrow matches at 70 meters. In 1995 the bracket grew to 64 archers and compound made its debut at the World Championships with largely the same rules as recurve. In 2007 the bracket grew to 128 archers.

More recent changes made matches faster and easier for spectators to follow. The set system was introduced for individual recurve in 2009. In 2013 the 1440 Round was replaced for qualification by 72 arrows at 70 meters for recurve or 50 meters for compound, team recurve adopted the set system, and compound moved to 15-arrow cumulative scoring at 50 meters.

Global reach

Target archery is the discipline used at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, so the same standardized faces and distances apply to athletes from many countries. The federation was founded in Poland in 1931, and its championships have been held in cities such as London in 1933 and Antalya in 1993. Youth championships and a World Cup series extend the same formats to younger archers and to a season-long circuit.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue