Archery at The 2004 Summer Olympics - Qualification and Format

Qualification and Format

There were four ways for National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to qualify individual archers for the Olympics in archery. For each gender, the host nation (Greece) was guaranteed three spots. The 2003 World Target Competition's top 8 teams (not including the host nation) each received three spots, and the 19 highest ranked archers after the team qualifiers were removed also received spots. Fifteen of the remaining eighteen spots were divided equally among the five Olympic continents for allocation in continental tournaments. The last three spots in each gender were determined by the Tripartite Commission. Sixty-four archers of each sex took part in the Olympics, with each NOC being able to enter a maximum of three archers.

For all archery events at the Olympics, archers stand 70 metres from their target. The target consists of concentric circles, and has a total diameter of 122 cm. Archers earn points based on which circle their arrow landed in, with ten points awarded for hitting the center circle, and one point awarded for hitting the outermost circle. During the ranking rounds, each archer shot twelve ends, or groups, of six arrows per end. The score from that round determined the match-ups in the elimination rounds, with high-ranking archers facing low-ranking archers. The first three rounds of elimination used six ends of three arrows, narrowing the field of archers from 64 to 8. The three final rounds (quarterfinals, semifinals, and medal matches) each used four ends of three arrows.

Thirteen men's and fifteen women's teams competed in the team competitions. The teams consisted of the country's three archers from the individual round, and the team's initial ranking was determined by summing the three members' scores in the individual ranking round. Each round of eliminations consisted of each team firing 27 arrows (9 by each archer).