Target archery is the most recognizable format of modern archery. It takes place both indoors and outdoors, over distances of up to 90 meters, and uses the traditional five-colour, 10-ring target. There are many other archery formats, but Target Archery is what’s in the Olympics, and thus gets the most coverage. For more information about other forms and formats of archery, head over to World Archery‘s page on Disciplines, or Wikipedia‘s page about Archery!

Outdoor Target Archery

Outdoors, recurve athletes shoot at targets set 70 meters away, while compound athletes shoot at targets set 50 meters away. Both groups shoot at a traditional yellow, red, blue, black, and white target that scores 10 points for the inner ring, and 1 for the outer. The recurve target is 122 cm in diameter with a 10-ring 12.2cm in diameter, while the compound target is 80 cm in diameter with a 10-ring in diameter. In international competition, compound targets only include the yellow, red, and blue rings.

Indoor Target Archery

Indoors, both recurve and compound athletes shoot at traditional yellow, red, blue, black, and white targets that scores a 10 for the inner ring, a 1 for the outer ring, and are set 18 meters away. There is a smaller 10-ring for compound athletes, measuring 2cm in diameter, as opposed to the 4 cm diameter recurve 10-ring. In international competition, targets only include the yellow, red, and blue rings, and are arranged in vertical groups of three. Athletes shoot a maximum of one arrow at each target face at any one time.

Other Competition Formats

While no longer used in international competition, the World Archery 1440 round was previously used as the qualification round (also called a FITA round). It consists of shooting 36 arrows at 90, 70, 50, and 30 meters for men, and 70, 60, 50, and 30 meters for women.

National archery federations around the world use variations of the World Archery rules and traditional rules in their own countries, making archery one of the most diverse sports for competition formats in the world.