The Sport of Archery

In the sport of archery, the archer uses a bow to propel arrows to hit the target from set distance(s). Derived from Latin word ‘arcus’, archery was only used for combating and hunting purposes in ancient times. But today it’s a popular competitive sport. In the 1840s, archery was taken to the level of modern sport from merely a recreational activity.

Archery target shooting

At the 1900 Paris Olympics, Archery was approved as the Summer Olympics sport. The only discipline of this sport featured at the Olympics is Recurve Archery - a type of Target Archery. Archery is also a Summer Paralympics event.

Archery was introduced into the World Games in London World Games in 1985. Field was the only Archery discipline featured that year. It was also featured in subsequent World Games like the 1989 Karlsruhe World Games, The Hague 1993 World Games, Lahti 1997 World Games, 2001 Akita World Games, 2005 Duisburg World Games, 2009 Kaohsiung World Games, and 2013 Cali World Games.

Target was another discipline that was added to the Archery sport in the 2017 Wroclaw World Games. Now, athletes can participate in two disciplines in the Archery sport category - Field and Target.

Archery was one of the sports featured in the 2025 Chengdu World Games. The two disciplines of Archery featured in this competition were Target and Field Archery. Here are the athletes who won gold at the end of this event:

Common Archery Sport Types include:

• Target Archery — competitions held indoors or outdoors between 18 m and 90 m from the target. In this competition, athletes use compound bows to shoot at circular targets 50 meters away. 
  This discipline has classes for women, men, and mixed teams (1 woman, 1 man). All the competing athletes shoot 72 arrows in the ranking round 15 arrows in the elimination round.
• Field Archery — a form of Archery that involves shooting at targets of varying distances, heights, and angles, around a course set in countryside terrain. Athletes must have special "fieldcraft" skills to succeed in this discipline.
  The shooting distances for this event are from 5 to 60 meters, with the targets either "marked" or "unmarked." Competing athletes shoot 3 arrows at each target.
  In the qualification round, there are 24 targets with 3 arrows each. But, there are 6 targets each in the elimination round, and 4 targets in the final round.
• Clout Archery — a form of Archery, similar to Target Archery, except you aim at a flag among a group of concentric circular scoring zones from long range.
• 3D Archery — a form of archery in which the goal is to strike targets in the shape of animals at unknown distances.
• Crossbow Archery — an archery discipline in which a crossbow is used instead of a regular bow.
• Flight Archery — a form of archery in which the aim is to shoot the arrow as far as possible.
• Ski Archery — involves skiing and shooting arrows at targets.
• Horseback Archery — shooting arrows at targets while riding a horse.
• Darchery — a combination of darts and archery, using bows and arrows, typically used for archery, but the target is a dartboard.