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In competition elite archers keep track of their opponents' scores and switch off between rounds

1 study · 5 archers measured

ForContextAgainst2000200520102015202020252001, for, n = 52001, context, n = 5
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

The only source is a French qualitative study from 2001 that filmed an expert coach and four national team archers, two of them among the best eight in the world, at two important competitions, for twenty-two and a half hours of footage that was then reviewed with each of them in an interview. Among the archers' recurring concerns, two answer the question. The first is knowing where they stand: they look at the scoreboard, listen to the scores announced over the loudspeaker, ask the coach or a teammate and, during the end, look at where the opponent's arrows have landed to compare them with their own. The second is recovering between rounds, through five typical activities that take them away from shooting: withdrawing to the practice hall, listening to music on a Walkman, playing with a Rubik's cube, reading a magazine, eating sweets. It is a careful description of how four archers at the very top behave, not proof that this behaviour helps: nobody has related it to score, and four men from the same team at two competitions are not enough to call it the habit of elite archers in general.

Also phrased as: "looking at the rankings during a competition"; "ignoring other archers' scores"; "switching off between rounds"; "what elite archers do between matches"; "keeping an eye on the opponent"

In practice

At competitions archers hear both that they should never look at the rankings and that they should always know where they stand, and between rounds they are told to take their mind off shooting.

Evidence

Status history

  1. 2001 Reported The first and only study on the question follows a coach and four elite archers from the French national team at two competitions, one international and one national, over twenty-two and a half hours of footage. Two recurring habits emerge: placing oneself against the rankings, by looking at the scoreboard, listening to the announced scores, asking the coach or teammates and comparing the opponent's arrows with one's own; and switching off between rounds through ordinary activities, from the practice hall to a Rubik's cube. It is evidence in favour on archers, but limited: one qualitative study of four people, which describes rather than measures.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). In competition elite archers keep track of their opponents' scores and switch off between rounds (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/competition/elite-archers-scores-and-breaks-in-competition

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_arciereelitesigestisceingara,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {In competition elite archers keep track of their opponents' scores and switch off between rounds},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/competition/elite-archers-scores-and-breaks-in-competition},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Other claims in this domain

See all claims on competition and scoring