Olympic sport
Team sport
Individual sport
Improves patience
Improves self-confidence
Teaches the importance of safety
Archery is particularly useful for youngsters as it teaches them the benefits of patience. Significant levels of practice are required to reach a decent standard and that level is not reached without patience and dedication. Archery teaches everyone to be responsible for one another and also for the equipment they are using.
Short description
Archery is the art, sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows. As a sport, archery requires skills of precision, control, focus, repetition and determination. It is available to be practised by all, no matter age, gender or ability, and is a widespread pastime in both developed and developing countries. Competitive archery – that is, archery that involves archers aiming arrows at a target – has various forms, but all have the same aim: to shoot your arrows as close to the centre of the target as possible. In the Olympics competitors aim at a target from a distance of 70 metres, and rounds include a ranking round where the overall scores determine the athletes’ rankings priors to a head to head elimination format. Scoring in archery is very simple: you just add up the number of points based on where your arrows hit the target. The highest score for a single arrow is 10 for hitting the inner gold ring, while the least (for hitting the outer white ring) is one point. Arrows missing the target altogether do not score at all. In Olympic competition athletes must shoot 72 arrows in 12 phases, with the overall cumulative score deciding their ranking. They then go into a head to head knockout competition where they must simply score more than their opponent. Tournaments vary in format and the number of arrows competitors must shoot and the distance to the target.
