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Olympic recurve

Recurve is the discipline of the Olympic Games, shot with a sighted take-down bow at a target face over set distances.

The bow and the setup

Olympic recurve is shot with a take-down recurve bow fitted with a sight, a long rod and side-rod stabiliser system, a pressure button and a clicker. The archer draws with the fingers using a tab, anchors under the chin, and releases when the clicker falls to signal a consistent draw length.

Because the sight is a moveable pin with no magnification and no rear peep, the recurve archer aims by moving the whole sight to a mark for each distance. Getting the sight and rest set up and repeatable is the foundation of a recurve score.

Distances and the round

At the Olympic Games recurve is shot at 70 metres on a 122 centimetre face with a ten-ring scored to a central X. Outdoor target recurve more widely is shot at 90, 70, 50 and 30 metres for men and 70, 60, 50 and 30 for women in the classic double, though the ranking round is 72 arrows at 70 metres.

Indoors, recurve is shot at 18 metres on a 40 centimetre face, the discipline that fills the winter season. The distance is short but the scoring ring is small, so sight precision and a clean loose matter as much as they do outdoors.

The head-to-head format

Olympic recurve is decided by the set system. After a ranking round seeds the field, archers meet in one-on-one matches shot as sets of three arrows. The archer who wins a set takes two points, a tie splits them, and the first to six points wins the match, with a single-arrow shoot-off if the score reaches five all.

The set system rewards consistency under pressure over a single big total, which is part of why recurve makes such a tense spectator sport at the Games.

Related

Sources: World Archery: disciplines · Wikipedia: Recurve bow · Wikipedia: Archery_at_the_Summer_Olympics