Come try Archery for free during Archery GB Big Weekend (UK)

Have you been inspired by Olympic archers, or just fancied picking up a bow and giving archery a go? Well now you can come try archery for FREE with no obligations and under the guidance of experienced coaches at one of the  Archery Big Weekend  events near you.

The Archery Big Weekend event is taking place from 25th to the 27th August 2012 all over the UK at several archery clubs from Middlesbrough to London and Cornwall. 

No experience required

Free

Everyone can shoot 

(Check with your local event in case they are unable to provide services for disabled or very young archers)

Beginners course shown above, but be prepared for the Archery Big Weekend events to be packed with people so come prepared with drinks and food.

This is not only a great opportunity to give Archery a go, but would also make a fantastic family day out during the school holidays. All events will be run by experienced coaches who will be able to provide a safe environment and if you find your self hooked event organisers can give details about joining your local club. You can just turn up on the day without prior booking but local club secretaries can be contacted if you wish to find out more first.  

For further information, including location and dates of participating clubs, visit the Archery GB web site

If you think your club would be interested in participating in this event and attracting new members all the relevant information, including application forms and a guide can be found on the Archery GB web site here. 

Olympic Archery Diary Women finals - 2 August 2012

Today we saw the women 1/8 eliminators from 9am and in this competition the archers shoot 3 arrows each set and the highest scorer gets 2 points, or 1 point each for a draw. The winner is the first archer to a total of 6 points. Two Korean women, Lee Sung Jin and KI Bo Bae, thrashed their opponents 6-0, Urantungala Bishindee and Hayakawa Ren, respectively (Mongolia and Japan). Schuh Berengere (France) and Perova Ksenia (Russia) won their matches against Choi Hyeonju (Korea) and Rochmawati Ika Yuilana (Indonesia), respectively,  by a single point. Chen Ming (China), Tan Ya-Ting (Taipei), Kaine Miki (Japan) and Christianesen Carina (Denmark) were knocked out.

The quarterfinals began at 2pm and with no close matches Lroig Khatuna (USA), KI Bo Bae, Roman Aida (Mexico) and Avitia Mariana (Mexico) soared easily through to the semifinals. These 4 archers then battled it out for the 3 medals. Avitia Mariana won bronze in her match against Lorig Kahatuna due to the Americas unfortunates arrows, even hitting a 6 inthis bronze medal match! The pressure must have also gotten to Roman Aida as she also shot a 6, leaving her with a silver medal and her opponent, KI Bo Bae with the gold. 

Final results = KI Bo Bae - Gold, Roman Aida - Silver and Avitia Mariana Bronze   

For results see the Olympic archery official page 

Olympic Archery Diary Day 3 - 29 July 2012

The 1/8 eliminators started at 9pm and resulted in GB, India, Italy and the Ukraine knocked out in the early stages of the competition. Although Italy and Denmark progressed to the quarter finals by a one point win, Japan and Russia beat their opponents Ukraine and GB, respectively, with several points to spare. The Ukraine shot poorly, but had been unlucky with their clothing after being told they could not shoot with a sleeveless kit and their alternative kit had too many logos on, resulting in lots of tape to cover them up! It just wasn't  their day, as the Ukrainians went on to shoot a 3 and a 4 scoring arrows, the lowest I think we've seen so far.   

After shooting well in the 1/8 eliminators Denmark followed with a poor round in the quarter finals, loosing to Korea 11 points behind. Japan and China made it into the semi finals by beating their competitors Mexico and the US, respectively. The closest match of the quarter finals was Taipei vs Russia where a 3 arrow shoot off was required, but Russia shot well under pressure to take the shoot off by 2 points. 

In the semi finals Japan and Russia lost their matches leaving them to go head to head for the bronze medal. Russia lost out on their chance for a medal by 2 points, earning the Japanese team their bronze medal.

The finals saw China against Korea. Although the final result was no surprise, with Korea taking gold and China silver, the match was close, with Korea winning gold by a single point keeping the audience poised down to the last arrow. This is the 7th consecutive gold medal for the women's Korean team and China also bagged a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 

Final Results = Korea - Gold, China - Silver, Japan - Bronze

For up-to-date and live results see the Olympic archery results page 

Olympic Archery Diary Day 2 - 28 July 2012

On Saturday the men team events took place, with medals awarded later on that day. The 1/8 eliminators kicked off at 9 am and rapidly saw GB, Taipei and Malaysia knocked out. India also narrowly lost out on a place in the quarterfinals to Japan after initially drawing and Japan taking the lead after a 3 arrow shoot off.  

After qualifying for the quarterfinals following a 3 arrow shoot off, Japan lost out to any further progression after loosing to America by one point, despite Americas initial slow start. Korea won their place in the semi finals against Ukraine and shot the highest scoring match of the day. In the third quarterfinal match China was off to a good start with a 10, but Italy won the patch 4 points ahead. Last of the quarterfinals, Mexico vs France and this was the most surprising event of these 4 matches. France just couldn't keep their cool and an arrow of 6 within the first 3 arrows was a bad start and Mexico shot well scoring 220 to give them a place in the semi finals.   

The biggest surprise of the day was Korea's loss to the USA, meaning no gold medal for Korea in the men team event! After Mexico's defeat by the Italy, they went on to play Korea for the bronze medal. The Korean team held it together, despite their earlier defeat, and went on to win the bronze medal.  

This left the USA vs Italy for the finals. Italy held a two end lead and then the USA caught up resulting in a nail biting ending. Final scores of 218 and 219 resulted in a 1 point win for Italy! 

End result : Italy - Gold, USA - Silver, Korea - Bronze

The competitions were close and a few surprising disappointing shoots from the Korean's and France. Throughout the day there were 5 dead center shoots and shooting out 5 cameras! A handy Italian trick was to add a piece of string to your bow to allow you to see the direction of the wind - but who knows what their secret to success is.

For all official results see the Olympic schedule 

Olympic Archery Diary Day 1 27 July 2012

On the day of the Olympic ceremony archers took their place on the line to shoot the  ranking round. Unfortunately, this initial round was not open to the public and there have been reports of disappointed spectators being turned away after purchase of fake tickets (liveolympictickets.com, reported as one of these fraudulent sited).

However, media coverage of today's event is keeping the excited friends, families and fans up-to-date one the latest nail biting events so far. Although it is only the qualifying rounds Im Dong-hyun has already broken a world record by scoring 696 with 72 arrows, beating his previous record of 693. One record wasn't enough apparently, and the Korean team (Im Dong-hyun, Kim Budmin and Oh Jin-hyek) went on to score 2087 from 216 arrows, breaking yet another world record!

It is then no surprise that the 3 Korean competitors currently sit at the top of the men individual table. Also in the top 10 men individual category are archers from GB, Japan, France, China, Canada and the USA. In the team events Korea is currently followed by France, China, USA and Japan, with India in 12 (last) place.  

For the individual women archery event Korea again are top, taking both first and second position. Other countries with arechers in the women individual event include Taipei, USA, Japan, Denmark, India and Mexico. Again for the women team event Korea are top and are followed by the USA, Taipei, Mexico and Japan, to make up the top 5 countries in the archery women team event.   

With 2 new records shot in one day, viewers will be glued to their TV in anticipation of greater scores as the competition mounts. Stay tuned to see if Korea continue to lead the way. For full rankings and results take a look at the London2012 web site. 

Top 10 - Interesting Olympic Archery Facts

1. If the archers’ arrow bounces off the target the archer holds up a flag to let the judges 
     know and their score is taken from a mark on the target, if it can be identified.  

    

2. In the archery team rounds the athletes can be coached while on the shooting line.

3. The modern Olympic recurve bow is based on a design from 1500 BC.

4. Archery first appeared in the second Olympics in 1900 Paris and continued to appear at 3 
     further Olympics until it was dropped for 50 years until 1972. From 1972, its consistently 
     remained a an Olympic sport.

    

5. South Korea has obtained, in total, the most Olympic gold medals so far.

6. France has taken part in 12 out of the 14 Olympic games that have include Archery to 
     date – this is the highest participating nation (not by number of archers). 

    

7. A protected area known as the blind is where you can find the judges and their spotter 
    (who uses a telescope to record scores).

8. There are several classifications for Olympic sports such as cycling, swimming and 
     gymnastics, but only one classification/bow type for archery. This is the recurve bow (not 
     counting the Paralympics where there are two bow types, recurve and compound).

9. Archers have just 40 seconds to release the arrow

10. If an arrow is dropped/miss fired on the shooting line then the archer can re shoot the 
       arrow if they can reach it (from the shooting line).

Archery - Find out how your Olympic archers are selected

As the 2012 Olympics draw near read about what the athletes from around the world had to do to qualify their places to shoot at Lords Cricket ground in London. Archers really have to prove themselves under pressure in a large competition environment and have continuous great performance win Olympic place. The main qualifying event took place in Italy 2011. Since then there have been several other opportunities at continental tournaments and recently at the final qualification tournaments in Ogden for archers to prove their worth. The whole process is somewhat complicated but here is a simplified overview.

128 archers shooting at the 2012 Olympics

                             Only 3 men and 3 women from each national Olympic Committee allowed.

             64 places are men and 64 are women.

6 places to the host country – GB 

                3 men and 3 women.

                Each Olympics 6 places are automatically given to the host country.

116 places through qualifying tournaments 

                58 men and 58 women

               

                32 places are allocated at the World Archery Championships, Italy 2011

                                24 team allocations

                                                These are the top 8 teams (9 if GB is in the top 8).

                                8 individual places 

                                               Top 8 archers that haven't already qualified through the  

                                                team allocations. Only 1 archer per national Olympics committee.

                                 13 places allocated at continental qualification tournaments

                                               

                                                 6 Asia, 6 Europe, 6 America, 4 Africa and 4 Oceania

                    3/2 men 3/2 women each continent

                      

              Any national Olympic committee already allocated a place at the world archery championships can not enter these competitions with the same gender.  

                                  9 places allocated at the Final World Team Qualification Tournament, Ogden 202

                                                3 best ranked teams per gender

Tournament only open to national Olympics committees that did not qualify a team through the World Archery Championships. If someone qualifies at this tournament that has already been allocated an individual place then this place will be added to the places available at the Final World Individual Qualification Tournament (below).   

                                4 places allocated at the Final World individual Qualification Tournament, Ogden 2012

                                                        This is the final opportunity for archers to qualify and the 4 best individual archers who do not already have a place will qualify.

6 Tripartite commission places        

                                          

3 men and 3 women

           This is a commission aiming to strengthen the international representation. This is achieved by allowing archers from national Olympics committees with few or no qualified athletes to participate. Only archers from national Olympic committees that have less than 7 athletes over the last two Olympic games can be invited to submit their best archer(s).

However, all archers need to meet a certain standard before they care considered. This includes achieving the following minimum scores between 2^nd July 2011 and 1^st July 2012 at registered WA events.

Men WA round 1230 or 70 m round 625

Women WA round 1230 or 70 m round 600

There are detailed reports discussing the qualifying process including documents from the internationalarchery federation and tripartite commission. 

Now you know how Olympic archers are selected, look at the archers that have been selected in the documents for men and women available on the World Archery web site.

A guide to understanding Olympic archery to come shortly along with a blog of Olympic Archery history – how it all began.

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