London 2012 - Olympic countdown: Archery

With less than 200 days before the start of the 2012 Games in London, we begin our Olympic sport guides with a look at Archery.

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• Venues: Olympic Stadium
• History: Athens 1896

Archery was introduced to the Olympic Games schedule in 1900, while women first competed in 1904. The sport was dropped in 1912, restored in 1920 and then dropped again until 1972, which is the point from which most records are calculated.

Belgium were the big losers from the break in the action, winning 20 medals including 11 gold between 1900 and 1920, and failing to collect a medal of any colour since the resumption.

South Korea picked up where the Belgians left off and lead the medal table comfortably, even though their archers only competed for the first time in 1984. Their proudest moment came in Seoul in 1988, when, in front of their own people, they won three out of four gold medals, plus two silvers and a bronze.

The Koreans’ total of 30 archery medals includes 16 gold, double the tally of the United States in second place. No other nation has won more than one gold.

In London the men’s and women’s events will be played in a knockout format. The individual competitions will be contested over the best-of-five sets, with three arrows per archer in each set. The team event will feature teams of three archers, with eight arrows each.

The archers will shoot from 70 metres at a target measuring 122cm in diameter, with the gold in the centre just 12.2cm. High-tech innovations over the years have included sights and stabilisers for the bows.

With men and women able to compete for only two gold medals each, no one can match the record of six archery gold medals set by Belgium’s Hubert Van Innis, with two in 1900 and four in 1920.