How Olympic archery works

Archery at the Paris 2024 Olympics kicked off on July 25th with the individual ranking rounds and will switch to the head to head rounds to determine the medals the following week. But what on earth does that mean? Confusing we know, if you aren't familiar with international archery. Well lets start with "Ranking".

Ranking: There are 128 archers are present at the Olympics. 64 men and 64 women. All shot a WA720 round on the 25th July meaning they shot 72 arrows at a 122cm face at 70m. The archers were then ranked 1st to 64th by their scores in their gender categories so giving them their seed. This is done before the Olympics get started for real to get it out of the way. This is where we start the head to head round and it gets all confrontational because up to now you are just shooting for score.

Head to Head: In each gender class, once everyone has a slot 1-64, (ties adjudicated), everyone gets matched with an opponent ... This is structured into a 1/32 bracket. 1st place with the highest score is matched with last place (the lowest score). 2nd place is matched with second last and so on and placed into a 'bracket grid'. For example ... South Korean Lim Sihyeon who ranked 1st with a world record score of 694 is matched with 64th place Alondra Rivera from Puerto Rico who scored 547. Spare a thought for Alondra on the 1st August when she goes up against Lim. This is the closest thing to a blood sport you get in target archery. Oh the Horror!
The ladies and men's brackets, with the results to date marked in, can be found in the links below. Already you can see each archers path to gold and who they might have to face.

Ladies Individual Recurve bracket                                                             Men's Individual Recurve bracket

Hey Gringo, wanna go mano a mano, five ends .. 122cm face .. 70m?

Now, each match up is a head to head with their matched opponent in a best of five ends format. If you like, "a square go" in the Scottish idiom - "Heid ta Heid"? Each end consists of three arrows. Add the score together for your three arrows and compare with your opponent. Two points if you beat your opponents score. Zero points if you don't. One each if you tie. First to six points wins and you get to do the happy dance. If the archers are tied at 5-5 after the fifth set, its time for the most insane bit of this sort of archery competition - the one arrow shoot off. Each archer gets one arrow. Closest the centre wins. This is the highest drama on the archery field. It all comes down to ONE arrow. Progress or go home - its that simple. Just imagine the stress and nerves when making that shot! After the 1/32 bracket, the 32 winners move on to the next round (1/16 bracket) where their opponent is decided by the bracket - links above for details. This continues on until there's four archers left. The two winners of those matches face off for gold and silver. The losing two face off for the bronze.

Teams: The single gender team competitions are a little different with three archers per team. Each nation's men’s and women’s teams are seeded numbers 1-12 based on the combined scores of their three archers from the earlier ranking round. The top 1-4 positions receive a bye in the opening round but 5-12 compete for spots in the quarterfinals. Each match is a maximum of four ends with each team shooting six arrows (two per archer) per end. Each team member shoots one arrow in turn then the other team gets to shoot one arrow per archer. Then they do it again for the total of six arrows. Again its two points for a win and one point for a tie. This time its just four ends to get those six points and the win. Ties at 4-4 result in each archer getting to shoot one more arrow - effectively now a three arrow shoot off. Highest score wins.

one arrow shoot off at GA last year STILL being bantered about.

In Mixed there are only two archers per team - one dude one dudette - with rules similar to the single gender teams.

In the main that's pretty much all there is to the Olympic archery format. There are other rules mostly for those one in ten thousand chances, etiquette and procedural stuff that you don't need to worry about unless they happen. Just enjoy the drama and the tension of the head to heads. When you get back to the club you might even want to try the head to head format out for yourself. Find a willing opponent, pick a distance you are both comfortable with and go to it! It's good practice for the real thing .. and gives lots of banter opportunities.