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The art, sport, or skill of shooting with a bow and arrow.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
DESCRIPTION
Archery tournaments, as we know them today, can also be traced back to England. Competitions were held as part of community festivals as early as the 17th century. By about 1600, three kinds of shooting were practiced in England, and they still survive in some form. In butt shooting, the ancestor of Olympic target archery, bowmen aimed at targets mounted on earthen butts at ranges of 100 to 140 yards. In clout shooting, the target was a piece of canvas, about 18 inches across, with a wooden peg in its center. Arrows are shot high into the air to descend on the target, which lies on the ground rather than being upright. Roving, the predecessor of modern field archery, grew out of casual hunting with bow and arrow. Archers are presented with targets of various shapes and sizes, simulating small animals, and they shoot at unknown ranges over rough ground, not a prepared course.
Archery became an official event in the modern Olympic Games in 1900 and was also featured in 1904, 1908 and 1920. International rules had not yet been developed, though, and each host country used its own rules and format. Because of the resulting confusion, the sport was eliminated from the Olympic program until 1972.
In 1972, after enough countries had adopted FITA’s rules, archery was re-admitted to the Olympic Games. Since that time, technology has greatly advanced the equipment, and some competitive formats have become obsolete. Archery has become wedded to skiing in the sport of Ski-Archery, with running in Arcathalon, and the compound bow, invented in 1966 by Wilbur Allen of Missouri, has been accepted in FITA but will not be a part of the Olympic Games.
www.usaarchery.org
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Homestead, FL 33031
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