Archers will line up with the historic Lord’s Pavilion at their backs as they shoot towards the iconic spaceship-esque media centre. Over 6,000 spectators are expected to descend on Lord’s daily for the eight days of competition. In the mix for Australia, Matthew Gray is eyeing a fourth Olympic berth. Should Gray qualify he will become Australia’s second-most capped archer to Simon Fairweather, who competed at five Olympics. Dual Olympian Deonne Bridger will also be hunting Olympic selection. Bridger contested the 1996 and 2004 Games and was archery section manager in 2008.
Balancing the experience with youth, Aussie Ben Nott will be looking to make the leap into the senior Olympic Team, having represented his country at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. Alongside Nott is archer Ryan Tyack who won a silver and bronze medal at the 2009 and 2005 AYOF respectively. Showing great form leading to London, Tyack blitzed the national record with a score of 685 at the end of 2011 and then delivered a 674 at the Oceania qualifier in Masterton, New Zealand to ensure Australia a men's quota place in London. Tyack's training partner Elisa Barnard also led a clean sweep in the women's qualifying round.
ARCHERY FORMAT
There are four Olympic archery events: individual and team for men and women. The aim for all events is to shoot arrows as close to the bullseye as possible accruing points.
All archers and teams compete in a 72-arrow qualification round which determines their placing for the rounds.
The individual competitions are played in knockout format with head-to-head matches. Matches are played over the best of five sets with each set allowing three arrows per archer. The winner of each match qualifies for the next round until the last two archers go head to head for the gold medal.
The team events follow the same format with teams of three archers competing against each other, with the best score after 24 arrows going through.
QUALIFICATION AND SELECTION
Australia can send a maximum of three male and three female competitors if quota places are won during the qualification period which opened at the World Archery Championships on 2 July 2011.
To be individually eligible, archers must also reach a Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) of 1230 in a FITA round or 625 for men and 600 for women in a 70 round.
For all the Nomination and Selection documentation click here>>>
AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC HISTORY
Simon Fairweather collected Australia’s first archery medal – a gold - in 2000. Tim Cuddihy kept the Australians on target with a bronze medal in 2004. At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games the highest individual Australian result came from Ha Neul (Sky) Kim in 19th place. Australia has been represented in archery at every Olympics since its return in Munich 1972.
To learn more about the history of archery and Australia at the Olympics click here>>>