Target archery involves shooting at stationary circular targets from set distances. Target archery is the kind played at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and is the type that most beginners or "Have a go" archery session participants try first. Archers shoot at distances of between 10 metres and 90 metres in outdoor competitions. Archery GB rounds can be up to 100 yards. Indoor target archery distances are a maximum of 18 metres or 20 yards depending on the round.
Target archery involves shooting at stationary circular targets from set distances. Target archery is the kind played at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and is the type that most beginners or “Have a go” archery session participants try first.
The recognisable five colour targets are generally used with their gold, red, blue, black and white rings.
Archers shoot at distances of between 10 metres and 90 metres outdoors. Archery GB rounds can be slightly further at up to 100 yards.
Indoor target archery distances are a maximum of 18 metres or 20 yards depending on the round.
In international target archery competitions, archers may use recurve, barebow and compound bows.
The five colour targets score 10 points for the gold inner ring and nine points for the next gold ring. The red rings score eight and seven points, the blue rings score six and five points, the black rings score four and three points, and the white rings score two points and one point. Missing the target scores zero points and is recorded as a miss.
In standard competition conditions, recurve archers shoot from up to 70 metres back, at a target measuring 122cm.
Compound archers usually shoot from 50 metres back, at a target face measuring 80 centimetres.
Barebow archers usually shoot from 50 metres back, at a target face measuring 122 centimetres.
Competitions consist of individual, mixed team and team events. A mixed team consists of one man and one woman archer, shooting with the same bowstyle, whereas a team consists of three archers of the same gender shooting with the same bowstyle.
There are two parts to a target archery competition - the qualification stage and the matchplay stage.
In qualification each individual archer will shoot 72 arrows to be ranked on their total score. The highest scoring man and woman decide seeds for the mixed team events and seeds for the team events are decided by ranking the highest scoring three archers of the same gender from one country.
In the matchplay stage, archers, mixed teams and teams progress through head-to-head brackets. The winner of each match advances and the loser is eliminated until the champion is crowned.
Recurve and barebow matches are decided using the set system - whereby archers shoot the points required to beat their opponents - while compound matches are decided on cumulative score.
In the Olympic and Paralympic Games, recurve archers must shoot at a target 70 metres away. Compound archers in the Paralympics shoot at a target 50 metres back. All events at both Games are shot outdoors.
Longbow archers can compete in traditional target archery tournaments alongside other bow types. They can also take part in traditional two-way longbow target shooting with two rows of targets at either end of a range.
Longbow archers shoot from a distance of between 10m and 90m depending on the round and category the archer has entered. Target faces are the same size and colour as for other bow types.
Internationally, longbow is only recognised in 3D competitions but can be used in all other types of archery domestically.
You can read the Archery GB Rules of Shooting in the Resource section of this page.
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