Paralympic Archery

140 Athletes compete for 9 gold medals

As with many of the other sports featuring in the Paralympic games, Paralympic archery was originally devised as a means of rehabilitation of injured soldiers after World War II. It became part of the Paralympics games initially in 1948 and has gone from strength to strength, in recent years.

Paralympic archery is thought to be one of the hardest sports, requiring strength, concentration and a large degree of accuracy at all times and has naturally become one of the most popular sports both to compete in and to watch.

The Paralympic archery competitions are split into two broad categories, those that are seated and those that are standing. There are also individual and team events and everyone shoots from seventy metres away from the target. The winner is the individual or team that manages to shoot an arrow the closest to the centre of the target.

Paralympic archery has been a long established part of the Paralympics and, as is the case with the main Olympic Games, Korean competitors are the ones that most other teams are chasing. Paralympic archery became famous when Antonio Robollo shot the Olympic Flame during the Barcelona opening ceremony in 1992. In terms of equipment, there is no difference between the standing and seated Paralympic archery competitions and Paralympic archery is rapidly gaining the same degree of following as that of the able bodied sport.