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Jargon buster

Anchor: Point on the archer’s face where the drawing hand contacts and locks in at full draw.

Fish-tailing: Visible swerve in an arrow’s flight.

Limb: The working part of a bow.

Nock: A groove in the arrow or bow that engages the string.

Robin Hood: Splitting an arrow lengthwise by firing another arrow into it.

Skirt: The non-scoring area of the target.

Basic rules

Athletes stand 70 metres from their target and score points by firing arrows at ten concentric scoring zones, from the golden ‘bullseye’ ten-score at the centre to the one-score on the white outer ring.

They have 40 seconds to release each arrow.

In the individual and team competitions, a preliminary round to determine seeding takes place before the official start of the London 2012 Games, consisting of 72 arrows.

The seedings are used to determine who plays who in the head-to-head elimination rounds. In the individual competition, 64 archers compete in a knock-out format, with matches comprising 12 arrows each.