Archery at 2024 Paris Olympics: Scoring rules, format and path to medal
The Paris Olympics 2024 is set to commence in another two days. A total of 329 events will be played across 32 sports in this edition of the quadrennial event and archery is an important sport in it. The history of archery at the Olympics is much of a fight back and regaining its place.
The sport was first introduced at the Summer Games back in 1900, which was the second edition of Olympics. It was part of the showpiece event in 1904, 1908 and even in the 1920 edition but post that was excluded. The global body of World Archery was brought into being in 1931 with the main agenda of reviving archery at the Olympics.
Finally, the 1972 Munich Games saw archery regain its lost glory as it was reintroduced into the Games, albeit with the recurve category. Team events were added in the 1988 edition and the mixed events in the Tokyo Games.
Rules of the sport
The Games start with the qualification phase where every archer can shoot 72 arrows. The total score helps in determining the rankings for the matchplay phase where archers face each other. In the matchplay phase, the competition is mainly best-of-five sets. A set is actually a predetermined number of arrows shot by an archer or a team.
The archer or team with better aggregate score gets two points for winning the set. If the set is drawn, then the two points are divided into the archers or the teams.
In the individual level, three arrows form a set. For mixed it's four and for team event it's six. The first archer to reach six points wins the match and others are eliminated. The same procedure is followed until the final. However, if after five sets, there is no winner, then the game goes into a tie-break round.
Here, in the individual event, the archer with the arrow closest to the target wins. In team events, the team with a better total is declared winner.
Format and path to medal
In the individual events, the game starts with the ranking round. Post that the 1/32 elimination round takes place following which is the 1/16 and 1/8 elimination rounds. After this, the game goes into the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finally the bronze medal and gold medal match.
In team events (including mixed team), there is no ranking round and the competition starts directly with the 1/8 elimination round, followed by the quarter-finals, semi-finals, bronze medal and gold medal match.