and Shooting

          Archery became an Olympic Sport in 1900, and Shooting became a sport in 1896.  Archery was one of the features of the Olympics several times from 1900 to 1920, but then the sport  disappeared for more than 50 years from Olympic events.  Finally, it reappeared at Munich in 1972, and has remained in the Summer Olympics ever since. 

    Many people incorporate Robin Hood  with the sport of Archery.  Today’s archers still honor this fabled outlaw, and to show it, the term “Robin Hood” now means splitting the shaft of an arrow already in the target with another arrow.  Today, a curved bow coated in fiberglass has become the standard, and arrows made of aluminum and carbon graphite can travel more than 240km per hour.  The most important requirements are simple.  They are to have steady hands, strong shoulders, flexible muscles, sharp eyes, and nerves of steel.  Archers shot at targets 70 meters away in the Sydney 2000 Games.  There were four events in which to compete: the men and women’s individual and team competitions.  The target is 1.22 meters in distance around, and it’s marked with ten concentric rings.  The bull’s eye, or center ring, counts as 10 points and is 12.2 centimeters in diameter.  The outer most ring is one point and the rings in between increase by one point as they get closer to the bull’s eye.  The teams, or archers, are ranked from one to 64.  Then, they compete in head to head single elimination matches. 

    Shooting is a sport where the bull’s eye looks like the period at the end of the sentence and where shooters compete with a great amount of noise and skill concentrating on firing quickly.  This sport tests the imagination.  There are only 3 shooting events at the 1896 games which is the first time shooting was a sport in the games.  Today, there are 17 events in shooting.  Ten of the events are for the men and 7 events are for the women.  The shooting events are divided into four different groups which are shotgun, rifle, pistol, and running target events.  In the shotgun events, the competitors shoot at clay targets.  The rifle and pistol events are on shooting ranges with the targets ranging in distance from 10 meters, 25 meters, and 50 meters.  The running target events have the competitors shooting at a moving target as it moves across a 2 meter opening from a distance of 10 meters.  The 17 events are:  

• 10m air pistol (40 shots) Women                         

• 50m rifle 3 positions (3x20 shots) Women
• 50m rifle 3 positions (3x40 shots) Men
• 50m rifle prone (60 shots) Men
• double trap (120 targets) Women
• double trap (150 targets) Men
• skeet (125 targets) Men
• skeet (75 targets) Women
• trap (125 targets) Men
• trap (75 targets) Women  

• 10m air pistol (60 shots) Men
• 10m air rifle (40 shots) Women
• 10m air rifle (60 shots) Men
• 10m running target (30+30 shots) Men
• 25m pistol (30+30 shots) Women
• 25m rapid fire pistol (60 shots) Men
• 50m pistol (60 shots) Men
    This is a sport that keeps growing.  Technology has helped this sport because of new firearms and equipment which has led to constant changes in the shooting competition.  

For more information visit:

http://www.olympic.org/uk/sports/programme/index_uk.asp?sportcode=sh

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