Historically, nations have, through humanendeavour, developed those elements and

personalities that have affected the world. In thewestern world, for example, Italy gave us VERDI,MICHELANGELO and Leonardo Da VINCI; Francespawned NAPOLEON, the Curies and the EiffelTower; Great Britain produced the Magna Carta andthe first great parliament. In ancient times, Egyptproduced the pyramids and an advanced society.

Most of these societies, except for the Egyptians,were preceded by the Hellenes and the Greeks, whosecity-states established the precedent for our democ-racies. SOCRATES and ARISTOTLE still influence modernphilosophy, as do their playwrights; and Greek archi-tecture to this day serves as the model for many of theworld's symphony halls, courthouses, museums andporticos with their fluted Doric, Ionic and Corinthiancolumns supporting the triangular facade abovethem. Therefore, in its way, the world still embracesancient Greece, including the Greek value of sport.

The Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens has roots thatdate back 2300 years into antiquity, to the time of theancient Olympic Games. However, the Stadium nev-er held an ancient Olympics, all of which were heldin Olympia in western Greece. Instead, this was theplace of the Panathenean Games, honouring Athena,the goddess of wisdom within this city that bears hername. (Panathinaiko is translated as Panathenean inEnglish.) These more local contests were held annu-ally as compared to the Olympic Games, which wereheld every fourth year. However, upon the revival ofthe Olympic Games in 1896, the Panathinaiko Stadiumbecame the site of the first modern Olympics.

It is fitting that the archery competitions at the2004 Olympic Games in Athens were staged at thePanathinaiko Stadium. One of the world's oldestsports had held its Olympic competitions at the siteof one of the most ancient sports stadia.

A cave-like tunnel leads from outside, high onthe hill behind the stadium, down to the track - theroute that served as the entry for those Panathenianathletes. And, as the archers walked through thetunnel, they walked with the spirits of the ancientathletes, sensing the pageantry and the competi-tive nervousness athletes universally experience asthey walk onto the track or into the arena beforethey race, wrestle and compete for glory. This senseof time and place has special meaning within thespirit of those in the Olympic family.

Tens of thousands of years ago, early man de-pended upon foot speed to bare-handedly catch hisfood. He also threw rocks to stun his prey and de-veloped an efficient spear to hurl. As his develop-ing intelligence made him more shrewd, he createdtraps and slings as he strove to create more efficientand safer methods to hunt ever larger animals andmeans that could harvest animals at a distance, si-lently, even while hidden. He needed the meat forprotein, the pelt for clothing and shelter, the boneand sinew to make tools.

He discovered the power stored within a saplingor bough bent into an arc or bow, held to that arcby a bowstring - therefore archery. The bowstringcould be drawn, creating even more tension in thebow limbs and transferring that power upon releaseof the drawn bowstring to a pointed arrow. The ar-

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row would be hurled forward, accurately guided byfeathers placed near the carved nock that initiallyheld it to the bowstring. Thereby the archer used thethen unknown principles of physics to bring downhis prey at a greater, and thereby safer distance.

We assume certain archers were more efficient,whose skills found them gathering more prey, orwho were more accurate against targets or whosestrength drew stronger bows allowing them toshoot over longer distances. Therefore, withinHomo sapiens' instinct to compete, a "sport" wasborn, its origins lost in pre-history.

Various concepts of the bow and arrow have beenused on all the populated continents for purposes ofhunting, sport and warfare, ranging from the mostprimitive to advanced societies: from the aboriginesof those continents on to the Egyptians of five-thou-sand years ago, then the Assyrians, Chinese, Goths,Picts, Huns, and the armies of Genghis KHAN andthe Mongol hordes, among others. Even today, na-tives of the Kalahari Desert and Southeast Asian is-lands and the Yamonani and other tribes of Brazilstill hunt with bow and arrow. The exception maybe the Australian Aborigine where archaeologicaldigs found small bows indicating they were prob-ably used only for ceremonial purposes.

Stories of archers abound in mythology, his-tory and literature. Within Roman mythology, thewinged Cupid is an archer whose arrows bearlove. Within HOMER'S Iliad, the leader Pandarus isrenowned as an archer though he is treacherous,and within that Greek poem, Paris kills Achilles byshooting an arrow guided by Apollo into Achilles'heel, the only point at which he is vulnerable.Apollo's twin sister Artemis is the goddess of hunt-ing and wild animals. Diana is the Roman coun-terpart of Artemis and in paintings and statuary istypically posed holding a bow.

Within The Odyssey (again HOMER), Odysseus(Ulysses) proves and identifies himself to his wife,Penelope, dispelling her suitors with an archer'sfeat of power and accuracy.

Penelope sets the challenge:

"Here is my Lord Odysseus' hunting bow.Bend and string it if you canWho sends an arrow through iron axe-helve sockets?Twelve in line, I join my life with his.

Odysseus in one motion strung the bow,Slid his right hand down the cord andPlucked it so the taut gutVibrated, hummed and sang

Now flashed arrow from twanging bowClean as a whistle, through every socket ringAnd grazed not one."

Sagittarius, the archer and centaur, half-human half-horse, is found within astrology and astronomy asone of the twelve signs of the Zodiac and as an arc-shaped constellation in our night sky avenging Orion,the hunter, with a drawn bow whose arrow is aimedat the star Antares, the Scorpion who slew Orion.

Legends about archers include the Swiss heroWilliam TELL, compelled to shoot an arrow throughan apple upon his son's head; and Robin HOOD, whoseband of archers took from the rich to give to the poor inoppressed old England. SHAKESPEARE'S kingly armieshad phalanxes of bowmen, and the Normans defeatedthe English with longbows at Hastings in 1066.

Within our own experience, we saw the Olympicmovement create its own legend on the night ofthe 1992 Opening Ceremonies in Barcelona, wherearcher Antonio REBOLLO shot a flaming arrow inblazing trajectory over the cauldron atop MontjuicStadium to spectacularly light the Olympic Flame.

The Panathinaiko Stadium itself is placed close tomythology. Upon a high hilltop, less than a kilome-ter to its northwest we see in clear and contempla-tive view the Acropolis, which holds the Parthenon,the massive Doric-columned temple dedicated tothe virgin goddess of wisdom, Athena.

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So much for history and mythology and into mo-dernity — for in 2004, the Olympic Games returnedto the country of their ancient birth and into Athens,the city of their modern revival more than a centuryago. The ancient Olympic Games took place from776 B.C., until 393 A.D., in Olympia, Greece whosehills were home to the senior gods including Zeus.They originated as a peaceful festival celebratingand concluding the four-year segments of their cal-endar, called Olympiads. The Games were instru-ments of peace as, during the Games, athletes fromwarring armies laid down their arms to come toOlympia to compete without hostility. (The conceptof the "Olympic Truce" still exists - today, the UnitedNations implores nations to desist from conflict dur-ing the tenure of each Olympic Games.) Then, asthe Games descended into paganism, violence andbloodshed, recently-Christianized Roman Emperor,THEODOSIUS I, ended them.

During the early 1890s, the young French BaronPierre de COUBERTIN campaigned to revive theOlympic Games and the 14-member InternationalOlympic Committee was established in 1894. Theyset to work organizing the first Olympic Gamesof the modern era, which took place in Athens in1896. And, how appropriate it was in 1896 for thenew Olympics to come home to Greece, though intheir modern form it was more efficient to cometo the population centre of metropolitan Athensinstead of to the rural township of Olympia al-most 200 kilometers to the west. They had comehome to Greece, if not to Olympia, the comingOlympics were an inspiration for the reconstruc-tion of Athens' Panathinaiko Stadium as the cen-terpiece of the Games. A connection still exists

between Athens and Olympia in that, prior toeach Olympic Games, winter and summer,the Olympic flame is lit in Olympia by the

rays of the sun focused on the torch with aconcave mirror. The flame is then borne byGreek runners to the Stadium in Athens.There, it is passed to citizens of the nexthost city, starting a journey that finds

the flame borne by runners across thehost nation, destined to arrive at the

Olympic site during the OpeningCeremony.

The stadium is a natural bowlconsisting of two parallel rect-

angular hillsides facing eachother, one east, one west, once

divided by a ravine now con-verted into the Stadium's

floor. The original, crudestadium, consisting pri-marily of those hillocks

serving as grassy seat-

ing for spectators, was built in 329 B.C., so orderedby Licourgas, Athens' governor. There were only afew wooden structures to accommodate royalty andreligious leaders. It was renovated three quarters ofa century later (250 B.C.) and reconstructed againalmost four centuries after that (139 A.D.), this timein tiered white marble covering the hillsides. To thesouth, a semi-circle of construction was added toconnect the hillsides, giving the stadium its elon-gated horseshoe appearance.

The wealthy benefactor for this reconstructionwas HERODES ATTICUS, whose sarcophagus honorablyrests on the hillside just above the east side of the sta-dium with the Greek inscription translated as:

"Here lies Herodes of Marathon, son of Atticus,worthyof all praise; all that surrounds him is his works"

In 1893, more than seventeen centuries afterATTICUS' reconstruction in 139 A.D., the PanathinaikoStadium was reconstructed once again, this timeinspired by the coming of the modern OlympicGames in 1896. The Stadium had been used in somecapacity until the fifteenth century after which it layin disrepair and was dismantled. Its site was exca-vated in 1869 by Ernst TSCHILLER, a German, anda quarter-century later, with the coming OlympicGames as inspiration, a civic project was under-taken to reconstruct the marble stadium under thedirection of architect Anastassios Metaxas.

To be accurate, the first Games of the modernOlympics took place on the "site" and not within theoriginal Panathinaiko Stadium because time (and thestone being used for other needs) had destroyed theoriginal marble construction. Timoleon PHILEMON, anOlympic official in 1896, described the condition ofthe Stadium as they found it, "The Stadium was com-pletely deserted, a shapeless field, a place of stones, thistlesand rubbish gathered together on all sides, hardly havingthe skeleton shape, but a shapeless bulk" Therefore, " ...itwas difficult to make it understood that the PanatheneanStadium would be the principle field of the Games, the

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Altis of Athens, the centre around which the whole cel-ebration would pivot." When those Olympic organiz-ers came to the site they found only bits and pieces ofthe original edifice as, over the centuries, the marbleblocks had been removed to create other structuresor to be burned into lime. Therefore, the Stadium hadto be entirely reconstructed, symbolically includingthe few marble pieces that remained.

It was a task easier said than done. Funds forreconstruction were short until the organizers ap-proached a wealthy merchant, Georgios AVEROFF,who, as PHILEMON wrote, ''...understood its mostGreek meaning and the true grandeur of the request putto him." AVEROFF responded with such munificencethat a statue of him was unveiled at the Stadium'sentrance on the eve of the Games, about one hun-dred meters from HERODES' sarcophagus. AVEROFFhad become HERODES.

And so, by 1896, Panathinaiko Stadium was re-constructed in its present grandeur of white mar-ble to be the appropriate site of the first OlympicGames of the modern era.

Over the centuries, the Stadium has gonethrough several incarnations, evolving from twoparallel grassy hillsides more than 2,300 years ago,to these massive tiers of white marble blocks, manylonger than three meters with a width and heightof one meter. Other blocks are smaller accordingto their function. The larger blocks weigh more

than four tons (2800 kilograms). The Stadium'snickname is "Kallimarmaro," meaning "beauti-ful marble" and justifiably so under the brightMediterranean sunshine. At night, under artificiallighting the Stadium seems to glow in the dark as-suming a ghostly white beauty.

On March 25, 1896, (April 6th on the Gregoriancalendar) in the presence of King KONSTANTIN andthe Greek royal family, the first Olympic Games ofthe modern era commenced with about 250 ath-letes representing 14 nations vying for medals in 9sports. Track and field events plus gymnastics andwrestling were contested within the Stadium. Themarathon race, considered a separate sport, was alsoconcluded at the stadium; while shooting, fencing,swimming, cycling and lawn tennis held their com-petitions at other locations. The most anticipatedevent was the marathon, a 40-kilometer road racewon by the Greek Spiridon Louis (who stopped tohave a glass of wine along the way), making hima national hero and Greek legend. The swimmingcompetitions were held within the Bay of Zea atPiraeus. The Opening Ceremony took place withinPanathinaiko before 70,000 spectators and, duringthe ten days of competition, an estimated 312,000spectators enjoyed the competitions within a citywhose population was 128,000. There were no com-petitions in archery until four years later at the sec-ond modern Olympic Games in Paris.

The Panathinaiko Stadium at the 1st Olympic Games 1896 (from: Coubertin, Pierre de/Philemon, Timoleon/Politis, N.G./Anninos, Charalambos, The Olympic Games. B.C. 776 -1896 A.D., part 2, Athens/London 1897, p. 27)

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The Panathinaiko Stadium at the 2nd International Olympic Games Athens 1906 (from: Savvidis, Pan S., Leukoma ton enAthenais B' Diethnon Olympiakon Agonon, Athens 1907)

The 2004 Olympic archery was held within anstadium 252 meters long and 127 meters wide. Thelength of its competitive surface is 207 meters and itswidth 33 meters. The surface is currently designedto hold competitions in athletics with a six-lane sur-rounding track and various pits and surfaces for longjump, high jump and shot put competitions. On thetrack, near the curved south section of the stadium, aretwo herms, nearly two meters high, that were foundwhen the Stadium was excavated. On each herm areback-to-back carved heads, similar to the drawings ofJanus. One of the back-to-back heads is that of a youngman, the other of an old man, which may symbolizethe future and past respectively. The youth representsa sense of freedom and abandonment; the elder repre-sents the caution that comes with age.

Vertical staircases and horizontal walkways di-vide the Stadium into 66 sections and various es-timates place the seating capacity at about 70,000spectators, although the increased size of today'sspectators may find that capacity somewhat low-ered. There are 47 tiers of flat marble to serve as seats,the tiers rising at a 45-degree angle. Two throneswere sculpted into the marble at the lower, centersection of the south end of the Stadium to accom-modate royalty or priests. The tunnel that served asthe entrance for athletes and judges descends fromhigh on the hill behind the stadium down onto thecompetition field at its southeast corner. There is nointernal structure within the Stadium as it is built ina natural basin upon those two hillsides.

In 2004, the Panathinaiko Stadium did not serveas the main stadium. The primary venue for theOpening and Closing Ceremonies and Athleticswas the relatively modern (1982) 75,000 seatOlympic Stadium, which is in the nearby suburbof Maroussi.

How did this conjuncture of Olympic archeryand Panathinaiko come to be? The idea to hold theOlympic archery competitions at the PanathinaikoStadium came jointly from the imaginations ofGiuseppe CINNIRELLA, Secretary General of theInternational Archery Federation (FederationInternationale de Tir a l'Arc; FITA), Tom DIELEN, theFederation's Executive Director, at that time, andmyself, Jim EASTON, President of the Federation.We all realized how very appropriate it would beto hold the competitions of what is probably one ofthe world's oldest sports at a competitive site usedfor sport in antiquity. Having the Stadium used asan Olympic venue for archery would also serve as apowerful reminder of the 1896 reincarnation of theOlympic Games.

Still, appropriate ideas are not easily broughtto reality. The shape of the Stadium seemed notto lend itself to a major archery venue. CurrentOlympic competitions consist of eight target lanes.The Stadium's narrow configuration could accom-modate only four lanes. So, competition was adapt-ed to fit the venue, with only two matches beingshot at one time; with the added benefit of makingit even easier for the spectators to follow the action.

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The seating capacity was limited to one section ofthe Stadium, accommodating about 5,500 specta-tors, although that capacity could be expanded to8,000 depending upon demand.

The Stadium is owned by the Hellenic (Greek)Olympic Committee, and is a registered nationalmonument, a national treasure. It remains littleused except for an occasional jogger and as the set-ting for the transfer of the Olympic flame from itsHellenic custodians to the organizers of the nextOlympic Games. There are also other occasionalevents there such as the Opening Ceremony of the1997 IAAF World championships (track and field)and in 2004, it was where the Greeks chose to ac-claim their national football team after their amaz-ing triumph in the European Championships.

The proposal was considered by ATHOC's topexecutives but initially rejected. FITA officials stillbelieved this was too good an idea to be dismissedand emphasized that use of the Stadium madeeconomic sense in that the non-invasive use of theStadium would cost far less in time and moneythan having to construct a new archery venue tohold eight shooting lanes and thousands of specta-tors. The Olympic organizers only needed to addanother day of competition, a seventh, to completethe elimination matches. The four lanes within theStadium were sufficient for the last four days ofsingle elimination matches and finals competitionsfor individuals and teams.

As FITA persisted, we first acquired allies in theATHOC Sports Department and when Mrs. GiannaANGELOPOULOS-DASKALAKI became President ofATHOC, she also understood the value of our re-quest. In July 2000, she confirmed the decision touse the Panathinaiko Stadium as the archery venueby including it in the ATHENS 2004 CompetitionSchedule for the first time.

As stated earlier, archery was not contested atthose original 1896 Olympics, but it was includedin the 1900 - Paris, 1904 - St. Louis, 1908 - Londonand 1920 - Antwerp Olympic Games, after whichthe sport was dropped from the Games becausethere was no international archery federation to seta single set of international competitive rules. Inthose early Olympics, each host nation used com-petitive formats which favored its own archers. Forexample, in the women's competition at London,the first eight in the "National Round" (48 arrows at60 yards and 24 arrows at 50 yards) were all ladiesfrom Great Britain, including the gold medallist, 53year-old Sybil "Queenie" NEWALL, who remains theoldest female Olympic medallist.

The Federation Internationale de Tir a l'Arc (FITA)was created in 1931, after which international ruleswere adopted. However, it took another forty-oneyears before the federation succeeded in having itreintroduced in Munich in 1972 after an absence ofmore than a half-century.

The Panathinaiko Stadium during the Marathon event at the Olympic Games 2004 (Photo: Th. Zawadzki)

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It can be assumed that mankind's early inven-tion of the bow and arrow as a tool stands in im-portance with his ability to make fire and to inventthe wheel. His dominion over animals was estab-lished by his superior capacity to reason and, asthat capability increased, he discovered his abilityto create, to invent, to improve. Using archery asour example, Homo sapiens created the simple bow.Then, four thousand years ago, the Assyrians mod-ified that relatively crude instrument by invent-ing a more efficient bow which was smaller, morepowerful and more effectively used by warriors onhorseback. In the creation of this technologicallyadvanced weapon, the master bowyer laminatedhorn, wood and sinew to create a powerful "re-

limb, allowing the archer to draw a heavier pullbow, which stores more energy, releasing the ar-row at greater velocity even though, because of thecams, less energy is needed to hold the bowstringat full draw. The bow continues to be refined andthere are national and international tournamentsand championships for archers using compoundbows; however the compound bow is not part ofthe Olympic competition.

Olympic archery, with a recurve bow, symbol-izes the ancient and traditional sport of archerythat returned to the Olympic Games in 1972, after a52-year absence.

Modern competitive bows, recurve or com-pound, have attached to them the accoutrements of

Diana (photo: H. Weinberg) Preparations for the Archery competitions in Sydney 2000 (Official Report)

curve bow." In a recurve design bow, the two tipsof the bow curve forward, being partially straight-ened when the bowstring is drawn, adding veloc-ity to the arrow upon its release. A modern versionof the recurve bow is used for Olympic competi-tion today. Materials that construct the modernthree-piece recurve bow (a handle and two limbs),are alloys of light weight metals for the handle andwood or syntactic foam, fiberglass and carbon fiberfor the limbs.

The most recent incarnation for the archer isthe "compound bow," which was invented by H.Wilber Allen, who received an American patent forhis design in 1969. The compound bowstring is notattached to the tips of the bow limbs. Instead, anelongated bowstring extends over two cam-shapedpulley wheels attached at the end of each bow

accuracy such as: elongated stabilizer rods to steadythe bow during aiming, an adjustable sight for aim-ing and a "clicker" which helps the archer to drawevery arrow to the same length before releasing it.

Wind is a challenge to all archers. However, theonly real measurement of wind velocity is by thearcher's acute senses and the reaction of the smallflag that waves above each target and of the severalwindsocks on the field. The bow sight is aimed,with adjustments for the wind, at the target's bulls-eye; but principles of physics require that each ar-row also be shot at a slightly upward angle so thatthe arrow can fall into the center of the target.

Arrows were originally made of wood, thensteel tubes, and for over 50 years, aluminum tubes,but today, nearly all arrows used in the Olympicshave a thin tubular aluminum core with a bar-

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rel shaped carbon fiber outer wrap. What werethe guiding feathers, are now vanes made from asoft plastic or thin mylar film. In antiquity, arrowtips were made of chiseled flint or stone. Today,Olympic arrow tips are made of stainless steel ortungsten. Over time, arrows have become smallerin diameter with stiffer and lighter carbon fiberconstruction. These arrows have a flatter trajectoryand are less affected by wind. It is apparent thatthe sport of archery persists as both art and science,involving constant research and development ofmaterials and designs.

Today, the archer himself is also the subject of re-search - his style, techniques and stance computer-ized and analyzed with digitized video recordings

best days for the USA, though a look at the nation-alities of the contestants in 1972 and 1976 indicatehow widespread archery had become throughoutEurope, Asia and North America. PACE and RYONdid not defend their titles as the USA boycottedMoscow. In their absence Tomi POIKOLAINEN ofFinland and Keto LOSABERIDZE of the Soviet Unionwon the male and female gold medals respectively.Overall, 56 nations boycotted those Games or elect-ed not to accept their Olympic invitations.

PACE returned in 1984 in Los Angeles to againwin the gold, this time setting an Olympic record.Women's competition found SEO Hyang-Soon ofSouth Korea winning the gold medal, establishingan Olympic record, a harbinger of the coming dom-

The Ladies' Archery event in Athens 2004 (Photo: Th. Zawadzki)

and his fears and attitudes studied by sports psy-chologists. Physicists study the aerodynamics of thearrow within meteorological conditions: headwinds,crosswinds, tailwinds, and humidity. Olympic ar-chers will be interested in knowing that tempera-tures within Panathinaiko Stadium are typically fourdegrees lower (Celsius) than outside. Also, there isusually a constant and gentle wind and sometimes astrong wind that blows parallel to the length of thestadium - towards the archers as they aim.

When archery came back to the Olympic Games,the sport seemed dominated by Americans. JohnWILLIAMS took the gold in 1972 at Munich andDarrell PACE won in 1976 at Montreal, and both setworld records. Doreen WILBER in 1972 and LuonnRYON in 1976 also took gold for the USA and eachset a World record in the process. These were the

ination of world and Olympic archery by SouthKorean women. In 1988 in Seoul, the AmericanJay BARRS won the men's gold and South KoreanPARK Sung-Soo took silver; and three South Koreanwomen won the gold, silver and bronze medals,led by KIM Soo-Nyung.

In 1992, in Barcelona, Sebastien FLUTE of Francewon the men's gold medal with the women's eventbeing won by CHO Youn-Jeon of South Korea, herteammate KIM Soo-Nyung this time taking thesilver. The 1996 Olympic competition in Atlantafound the USA's Justin HUISH winning the men'sgold medal as South Korean KIM Kyung-Wookwon the women's gold.

Spectators in Sydney in 2000 were thrilled whenAustralian, Simon FAIRWEATHER, won the gold in themen's competition; while again South Korean wom-

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en took all three medals in the women's competi-tion, with 17 year old YUN Mi-Jin winning the gold.

The first Olympic team (three archers) competi-tions took place at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul andthe hometown South Koreans took the gold medalin both the men's and the women's tournaments.Since the 1992 Olympics, the top eight teams areselected for the Olympics at the World ArcheryChampionships prior to the Olympics, and up toeight additional teams are selected at the Olympicsfrom the teams with the highest score during theRanking Round. The Olympic team event is asingle-elimination match competition where thethree archers on each team alternate shooting threerounds of three arrows each. Though Spain (1992)and USA (1996) won the men's team competition,the Korean women were utterly dominant at thattime and the Korean men joined them atthe top of the podium in Sydney in2000, a success both Korean teamsrepeated in Athens 2004.

PARK Sung Hyan's gold med-al in the women's competitionin Athens meant that since 1984South Korean women have wonevery Olympic gold medal avail-able within individual and teamarchery. The outstanding archer inthese competitions has been KIMSoo-Nyung, who won gold, silverand bronze medals in individualcompetitions and three golds inteam competitions between 1988and 2000. And, though not asdominant as their women, SouthKorean men have also done well inOlympic competition with successive golds in theteam event.

Why are South Korean men and women sodominant in archery? The answer lies in the his-toric and strong archery tradition in Korea and inthe national pride within a nation that has taken ar-chery to its heart; where archery is taught to youngstudents and well-subsidized company archeryteams abound. Also, there are many full time, wellpaid archery coaches within the company teams,the schools and national team training facilities.These South Korean Olympic medallists are rolemodels and national heroes that children strive toemulate.

To understand the sport of archery, some knowl-edge of how it is scored is necessary. The diameterof the circular archery target is 1.22 meters (4 feet).The center of the target is yellow in color. Four ringssurround the yellow, the first being red, the nextblue, then black and finally a white ring that servesas the outer circumference of the target. Within all

Archery Logo of the Athens Games2004

rings is a thin line dividing each ring into inner andouter scoring areas of equal width - 6.1 centime-ters (2.4 inches). The inner yellow circle, the bulls-eye, has a diameter of 12.2 centimeters (4.8 inches).There are 10 different scoring areas.

An arrow landing within the inner yellow area,the bulls-eye, scores 10 points. An arrow that landsin the outer yellow ring scores 9 points. An arrowshot into the inner red ring, scores 8 points, and asarrows land further away from the center of thetarget within the various rings, lesser points arescored, down to one point for the outer white ring.An arrow that touches a dividing line betweentwo scoring areas is given the higher value. For ex-ample, an arrow shot into the inner blue section,but whose outer surface touches the line dividingit from outer red is given a score of 7, not 6

points.Since archery's return to the

Olympic Games in 1972, shootingformats have gone through severalchanges. The FITA Round was usedthrough the 1984 Games - 288 ar-rows were shot from a variety ofdistances, ranging from 90, 70, 50and 30 meters for men and 70, 60,50, 30 meters for women. The win-ner was the archer with the highestscore after four days of shooting.Then, in 1988, the first modifiedFITA Round elimination formatwas adopted, called the GrandFITA Round. In 1992, Olympiccompetition changed to the cur-rent, exciting, match-play, single-elimination Olympic Round.

The individual and team Olympic Rounds in-volve only one shooting distance - 70 meters, whichapplies to both men's and women's competitions.Within the Olympic Games individual competi-tion, there is first a Ranking Round. Each of the64 men and 64 women Olympic archers shoots 72arrows, then each archer is ranked from 1st to 64thaccording to his/her score. A bracket is establishedfor the subsequent single-elimination matches,with the 1st ranked archer competing against thearcher who placed 64th, the 2nd ranked archercompeting against 63rd, the 3rd against 62nd andso on. Therefore, there are 32 single-eliminationmatches, then 16, until ultimately eight archersqualify for the finals. Until this point, each archershoots 18 arrows within each match. Then, fromthe quarterfinals through the final match, 12 ar-rows are shot by each competitor. That final matchis the sixth for the two competitors, 90 total arrowshaving been launched, not to mention the 72 ar-rows shot in the original ranking round.

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Of course, within the tournament there maybe tied matches, which are broken by the scoreachieved by shooting a single additional arrow.If the archers stay tied after the third shootout,the technical officials will determine the winnerby measuring which archer's third arrow landedcloser to the center of the target. All of which mayfind victory or defeat determined by the location ofthose last one, two or three arrows, the culminationof years of anticipation, competition and training.What can be more thrilling, even heartbreaking?

For example, in the 1996 Olympic quarterfinalmatch, USA's Justin HUISH, needed only to score a 9with his last arrow to win against Michele Frangilliof Italy. However, Huish scored an 8 as Frangilliscored a 10 with his final arrow to tie the match.Within the ensuing tiebreaker, they tied once again.In the second tie-breaker, Huish shot a 10 andFrangilli a 9, Huish went on to the semi-final thento the final match to win the gold medal, defeat-ing Magnus Petersson of Sweden. Frangilli eventu-ally finished 6th, the possible difference between agold medal and 6th place having been determinedby the placement of that last quarterfinal arrow, or

possibly by the uncaring vagaries of a gust of wind.The trueness of the trajectories of Olympic arrowsdefines fame and glory as well as they may definesorrow and disappointment.

In 1992, Spain won the men's team event by onlytwo points - 238-236; and similarly in 1996 the USAmen's team defeated the South Koreans 251-249. In1980, shooting the old double FITA Round (288 ar-rows) individuals competition, Tomi POIKOLAINENof Finland defeated Boris ISACHENKO of the SovietUnion: 2455-2452, a margin of a mere three pointswithin the thousands that were scored. Victory ordefeat can be only a hairsbreadth apart.

When in Athens, go to the beautiful white mar-ble Panathinaiko Stadium beneath the glory of theAcropolis to see the perfect setting where the 2004Olympic archery took took place, a sport that cancause your heart to race with the twang of a bow-string and the thump of an arrow landing in theheart of the bullseye - the arrow almost too swift tobe seen within its trajectory.

Neither ULYSSES, nor Robin HOOD, nor WilliamTELL could have imagined nor even dreamed it!

Antonio Rebollo at the Opening Ceremony of theBarcelona Olympic Games 1992 (Diem Archives)

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