Archers
Archery being the sport in which a bow is used to shoot arrows at a target the person aiming at the target with the bow and the arrow is the archer. Archers have always been a significant part of human history. Pictures of archers dating back to 7500 B.C. have been found in Egypt. Initially they were hunters of food and they used their skill to kill game birds and animals. Then there role shifted to that of a warrior and a soldier. Ancient archers were used by Egyptian on light chariots to attack opposing armies. In medieval ages the ancient archers - who were the yeomen - were like an asset to the king’s army. The medieval ancient archers were experts in longbow and with little or no casualties they caused heavy damages to the enemies.
Houyi is an important character in Chinese mythology. He is said to be among the ancient archers or the Chinese archer hero who shot down nine of the ten suns that were burning the earth up. Some other famous archers of similar sort include Robin Hood. William Tell is also counted among the famous archers. The most famous archers were the Mongols or the medieval when it comes to warrior. Pictures of archers can be found on the hall of fame of history as they contributed a lot.
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It is due to these famous archers and due to be contributions of the archery enthusiasts that it continues to be a famous sport even today. So much so that it is an Olympic sport and in this game participants participate in individual and team Olympic events. Countries pick out and train the most specialized archers and send them to compete in the Olympic Games.
Archery became a part of the Olympic Games in 1900 and continued to be so till 1920. However, each country followed its own format and the sport became very chaotic due to this it was discontinued. In the four Olympics where archery was played only girl archers competed on individual basis. Proper rules were developed by FITA in 1931 but archery returned as an Olympic sport in 1972. When the sport returned male and female archer contestants both were allowed to compete but the event was an individual based competition. In 1988 both girl and male archers competed in individual as well as team events. The four archery events that are a part of Olympic Games include:
- Male Individual
- Girl Individual
- Male Team
- Girls Team
The format and rules for the girl and male archers events are the same for both individual and team events. Scoring is done using a target with 10 rings each ring represents points from one to ten. To shoot at this target Olympic archers use the re-curve bows and all the participants follow the same rules chalked by FITA. 64 male and 64 girl archers compete in Olympic archery sports events. These professional archers are systematically chosen from different countries. For example according to the selection system the host country will get to send 3 male and 3 female archers to compete in the Olympic archery events.
Many male and female archers have been recognized through these Olympic sports to be best and unbeatable among the professional archers. A Chinese archer who has also brought pride to her country is Juan Zhang who beat all the other girl archers in the women’s recurve to have the highest score that any female archer has ever had in Britain.
