Archers fire at targets 70 metres away in two events; individual and team competitions. Men and women compete separately. The target is 122 centimetres in diameter and marked with 10 concentric rings. The bull's-eye stands 1.3 metres above the ground and is 12.2 centimetres in diameter. A hit there counts for ten points.
Each ring out from the centre scores one number less, so that a shoot that strikes the outer ring counts for one point. The two innermost rings make up a yellow circle. Proceeding two bands at a time, the circle is ringed in red, pale blue, black, then white on the outside.
The competition is a series of head-to-head single elimination matches. At the end of a ranking round, the draw for which is random and computer-generated, 64 men and 64 women remain. Seeding of players takes place after the ranking round, in which archers shoot 12 ends and six arrows each, and are up against a time limit of four minutes for each end. Player No 1 plays player No 64, No 2 plays No 63 and so on.
The elimination - in which each archer shoots six ends of three arrows, with a time limit of 40 seconds per arrow - proceeds until the winners of the semi-finals battle it out for the gold and silver medals in the final. Those who lose in the semi-finals compete for the bronze medal. A shoot-out in which each player has three arrows decides the winner in case of a tie in the head-to-head contest.
In the team events, the 16 best teams of three players from the ranking round
continue into elimination rounds. Each team shoots one end of three arrows each player for a total of three ends of nine arrows, within a time limit of three minutes. This means that each player has just 20 seconds per arrow, half the time allowed in the individual event.
