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During the first ever Olympic games held in
Greece, archery was not part of the roster of official games at all. But if
you take a look into the history of Olympic archery, you would see that the
sport has been held for more than a thousand years already. Thus, there
could be that strong possibility that Olympic archery has been in the
circuit for that long now.
Olympic archery for the Men’s Division was
first launched in 1900. A short four years later, Olympic archery for the
Women’s Division was also launched. Sadly, uniformity was not established,
as to rules and regulations for the Olympic event. This eventually led to
Olympic archery being dropped from the roster of official events in the year
1920. In 1931, the FITA, or the Federation Internationale de Tira l’Arc was
established. This is actually the official governing body of the sport in
the global perspective.
Over the years, FITA and its members debated within
themselves in the hopes of establishing common ground for the official rules
of Olympic archery. It took them quite a number of years actually. In time,
the participating countries have reached a common ground on the rules, but
this was not enough to get Olympic archery right back on the platter. In
fact, it was not until 1972 that Olympic archery made it back into the
official roster. The Olympic games then were held at Munich. In 1988,
Olympic archery expanded into team competitions, aside from the usual
individual events.
For Olympic archery, it is actually the
recurve bow that has gained the reputation of being the official bow being
used. Olympic archers are very careful upon releasing arrows from this type
of bow because the arrows can travel as fast as 150 mph when released from
the recurve bow. The bows themselves are very sleek in appearance, boasting
of wood, graphite, and fiberglass. The bows also have stabilizers that are
used in maintaining the straight course of the arrows as they are released.
The strings of the bow are also made from the same material that comprises
Kevlar.
You can then just imagine how fast the arrows can travel when
released from Kevlar strings! The arrows used in the Olympics should be made
of either carbon graphite or aluminum. These are the only arrows that make
it into the Olympics. Just by looking at all these fancy gear and equipment,
you can safely say that the whole package would cost you more than a
thousand bucks!
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