Archery

Summary

Archery at the 2012 Olympic Games was held at the Lord’s Cricket Ground from July 27 – August 3. In all, 128 athletes (64 men and 64 women) competed.

The Olympic Archery competition takes place outdoors in four categories of events: men’s and women’s individual events and men’s and women’s team events. Competitors shoot from a standing position and attempt to land their arrow in the central circle, just 12.2 cm in diameter, of a target face that is 122cm in diameter. The target, which is 70m away from the archer, consists of 10 coloured concentric circles known as ‘rings’. An arrow in the innermost circle, also known as the ‘bull’s eye’, is worth 10 points. An arrow in the outermost circle is worth one point. An arrow that lands successfully between these two circles is worth two-to-nine points, depending on which ring it hits.

At the Olympic Games, the two individual Archery competitions (one for men, one for women) were played in a knockout format. Matches were played over the best of five sets, with each set consisting of three arrows per archer. The winners of each match qualified for the next round, as the last two archers went head-to-head in the gold medal match.

A knockout format was also used for the men’s and women’s team competitions, which featured teams of three archers competing against each other in a best-of-24-arrows format.