Let's talk about Para-Archery

Archery
Archery is for all.

Let's talk about Para Archery.

Para Archery are for archers (athletes) with physical impairments to play the sport of Archery under classification rules.

How did it come about?

Professor Sir Ludwig GUTTMANN who was used to be known as Dr Guttmann had set up a spinal injury unit for patient with spinal cord injury in  World War 2 at Stoke Mandeville. He revolutionised the treatment of patients by introducing sport as part of the rehabilitation process.

In 1946, the sport of archery was introduced to this programme.

The first competition was held on the front lawn of the hospital in 1948. 

This was the start of the great sport movement for the disabled which continues to grow today.  

The sport tests accuracy, strength and concentration. It includes specific competition categories for athletes with certain classifications.

International events were held under the umbrella of The International Stoke Mandeville Games for paraplegics & tetraplegics (ISMGF) every July. 

In the early days the rounds shot in archery were;-

a) the St Nicholas Round (48 arrows at 40 yards and 36 arrows at 30 yards) for novices and

b) the Albion Round (36 arrows at 80 yards, 60 yards and 50 yards) for established archers.   

Para archery was the first sport where wheelchair athletes had organised competition and was one of the original Paralympic sports at Rome in 1960 and the decision was taken that every fourth year the games would be Paralympics.

The athletes at this time were all assessed by doctors and given a class that was used for any sport in which they participated.   

By 1970 the archery competition had changed to a World Archery Federation  ("FITA") Round, and the competition was awarded "Star Status".   

The 1992 Paralympics included athletes with many disabilities, not just spinal cord injured and was the last Paralympics held under the ISMGF banner, as following the games the International Paralympic Committee ("IPC") was born.   

At the World Championships 1998, FITA piloted the sport specific classification system used today. 

It has three classes: 

1) "W1" for those with a disability in arms and legs, 

2) "W2" for those with a disability in the legs and 

3) "Standing".   

The sport was growing with world and regional championships as single sport events, the Paralympics being the only multi-sport event in which Para-Archery is included.   

In Para archery, the target size and distance archers stand from the target differs based on the competition category. 

In individual events, archers shoot 72 arrows at the 10-circle target, divided into 12 ends of six arrows each. Each athlete is allowed four minutes per round. 

The top-scoring athletes advance to 15-arrow head-to-head matches, which are single-elimination.

An archer using a recurve bow shoots at a target 1.22m in diameter, 70m away from the shooting line. 

A compound archer shoots at a target 80cm in diameter and stands 50m away.

From 2006, the IPC was encouraging sports to develop into sport specific organisations and to either become independent sports or to move their governance to the sport specific body. 

Following discussion with the archers it was their wish to approach FITA to see if they would take over the governance of disabled archery.   

On 1 January 2009 Para-Archery started the move from IPC to FITA and the process was completed at FITA Congress that year.   

This completed the process from Para-Archery as a rehabilitation tool in 1946 to a totally sport specific organisation today.   

Para-Archery has its own committee established within the FITA family. It continues to grow and move closer towards the system used by the other archery disciplines.   

Archery is also one of the only sports to have had disabled athletes compete both in Olympic and Paralympics and many medals have been won in able-bodied competition by disabled archers. 

Therefore it can be said that the sport of Archery is for everyone.