Even top archers put the occasional arrow away from the centre

The summary today

Nearly every study that reports the individual arrows of high-level archers finds the occasional arrow away from the centre. In four elite Australian archers at 30 m on the 60 cm face, one arrow in eight (31 out of 240) was bad, meaning 5 to 7 points with a poor rating from both archer and coach; in seven Junior World Championship archers, indoors at 30 m on the 80 cm face with no time limit, averages ran from 8.72 to 9.31 points per arrow, yet the ranges of the weaker ones went down to 5 and 6. In head-to-head matches recorded by World Archery from 2013 to 2019 the lowest score on a shoot-off arrow is 1, and in a Belgian national squad the best archer put no 6 and no 7 into 90 arrows at 18 m, the weakest one 6 and fourteen 7s. One study points the other way, though: seven elite Indian archers never dropped below the 8 over 210 indoor arrows at 18 m. It is small, with thirty arrows each, but it is a contrary result on archers, and so the status is contested rather than corroborated. How often it happens depends on level, distance and the number of arrows, and nobody has counted it over full rounds.

Also phrased as: "even champions shoot bad arrows"; "everyone shoots the odd stray arrow"; "elite archers still drop shots"; "even elite archers shoot sevens"

Evidence

• 1990
  For Archers Published later

  4 elite Australian archers, two men and two women across recurve and compound, shooting for score at 30 m on the 60 cm face, in two sessions up to 100 days apart: of 240 arrows, 164 were good (68%), 45 average (19%) and 31 bad (13%). An arrow counts as bad when it scores 5 to 7 and both archer and coach rate it poorly, and as good when it scores 8 to 10 with matching ratings. It is the first count in the bibliography, on four people.

  Fine Body Movements and the Cardiac Cycle in Archery · David Keast, Bruce Elliott

• 1993
  Context Archers Published later

  In one of the study's 8 archers, and the paper does not say whether he was among the five elite or the three university-level ones, 36 arrows at 90 m give an average of 7.25 ± 1.25 points, with a group of worst arrows at 5 points or less and a group of best ones at 9 and 10. The arrow well away from the centre is there, but without knowing the archer's level it does not count as evidence about the top.

  Biomechanical Study of the Final Push-Pull in Archery · P. Leroyer, J. Van Hoecke, J.N. Helal

• 2006
  For Archers Published later

  7 recurve archers aged 16-19, two boys and five girls, who had competed at the Junior World Championships and the German championships, 66 arrows each at 30 m indoors on the 80 cm face, in 11 ends of 6 with no time limit: individual averages from 8.72 to 9.31 points per arrow, with score ranges running from 8-10 for the best archer to 5-10 for the weakest. These are the easiest conditions the sport offers, and the arrow well away from the centre is still there.

  On‐target trajectories and the final pull in archery · Jürgen Edelmann‐Nusser, Mario Heller, Martin Hofmann, Nico Ganter

• 2006
  For Archers Published later

  The same 7 archers and the same 66 arrows as the journal article, presented as a method for measuring draw length, and so a single study: the table gives averages of 9.31, 9.26, 9.24, 9.18, 8.97, 8.85 and 8.72, with ranges from 8-10 for the top two down to 5-10 and 6-10. Only the two archers with the highest averages never drop below the 8.

  Measurement of Draw-Length Alterations in the Final Pull in Archery · Juergen Edelmann-Nusser, Mario Heller, Martin Hofmann, Nico Ganter

• 2018
  For Archers Published later

  6 recurve archers from a Belgian national squad, 90 arrows each at 18 m on the 40 cm face: the best finishes at 8.94 points per arrow (standard deviation 0.41) with no 6 and no 7, the weakest at 8.22 (0.83) with one 6 and fourteen 7s, and the mode is 9 for the top four and 8 for the two least precise. Level shows in the tail of the worst arrows more than in the average.

  The Uncontrolled Manifold Concept Reveals That the Structure of Postural Control in Recurve Archery Shooting Is Related to Accuracy · Ben Serrien, Elout Witterzeel, Jean-Pierre Baeyens

• 2020
  Against Archers Published later

  7 elite Indian archers, four compound and three recurve, 210 arrows at 18 m indoors in ten ends of three: 117 tens (55.7%), 86 nines (41.0%) and seven eights (3.3%), with nothing below the 8. Over thirty arrows each at a short distance the arrow away from the centre does not appear: it is the only contrary result, small and in a regional journal.

  Heart Rate Values During Shooting is a Field-Side Performance Analysis Tool in Archery-A study of Elite Indian Archers · Chandra Sekara Guru, Anup Krishnan, Uma Mahajan, Deep Sharma

• 2020
  For Archers Published later

  Head-to-head matches from 120 events recorded by World Archery between 2013 and 2019, from World Championships and World Cups down to continental and national competitions: across 3,645 shoot-off arrows by adult recurve and compound archers the average is 9.088 ± 1.011 points, with an observed minimum of 1, while the per-arrow average of a set never falls below 6.667. The arrow well away from the centre turns up even when it matters most; the study does not say at which event, to which archer or how often.

  Choking under pressure in archery · Alessandro Bucciol, Alessandro Castagnetti

Status history

1. 1990 Reported The first count comes from four elite Australian archers at 30 m on the 60 cm face: of 240 arrows classified by score, archer and coach together, 31 are bad, meaning between 5 and 7 points, or 13%, against 68% good. The arrow well away from the centre happens at that level too, but it is a single study on four people, so the evidence is limited.
2. 1993 Reported One archer in a French study averages 7.25 points at 90 m, with a group of arrows at 5 points or less. It points the same way, but the paper does not say whether that archer was one of the elite or one of the university archers in the sample, so it does not count as a second study of top archers and the status stays at reported.
3. 2006 Corroborated Seven Junior World Championship archers, indoors at 30 m on the 80 cm face with no time limit, score between 8.72 and 9.31 points per arrow, yet only the top two never drop below the 8 and the ranges of the weaker ones reach down to 5 and 6. The conditions are as easy as they get and the stray arrow is still there. The two papers on the same archers count once: together with the 1990 study they make two independent high-level samples pointing the same way, and none points the other.
4. 2018 Corroborated In a Belgian national squad shooting 90 arrows each at 18 m on the 40 cm face, the weakest of the six puts in one 6 and fourteen 7s, the best neither. It confirms the pattern and shows where level shows up: in the tail of the worst arrows more than in the average. The status does not change.
5. 2020 Contested Two findings arrive that point in different directions. In head-to-head matches recorded by World Archery from 2013 to 2019 the lowest score on a shoot-off arrow is 1, against an average of 9.09. Seven elite Indian archers, on the other hand, never drop below the 8 over 210 arrows at 18 m indoors. It is a small study, with thirty arrows each, and on its own it does not show that the arrow away from the centre never happens; but it is a result on archers that points the other way, and on the more prudent reading the status moves from corroborated to contested. Nobody has yet measured how often it happens.

Related

Related articles

• On a level score, counting tens rewards the weaker archerCounting tens breaks ties in archery, yet it reverses exactly where it is used: in the model, on level totals, it picks the better archer 44.7 times in 100.
• I scored more and lost: how the set system worksSince 2010 a match has been decided by sets, not by adding up arrows. How it works, how often the lower total wins, and why it happens mostly between equals.
• What a top archer scores per arrow, and what level your own score matchesHow many points per arrow top archers score, how many competitive archers in the studies score, and how many tens the best archers shoot: the ladder by level.

Research lines

• 15 studiesFinal draw, clicker and reaction time since 1993
• 27 studiesTremor and sway while aiming: telling two phenomena apart since 1990

Other claims in this domain

• CorroboratedAbout 150 points on a FITA round separate a club archer from a national-team archer13 studies · 492 archers measuredStatus since 2003
• CorroboratedAn archer's arousal rises with what is at stake, and keeps rising as the competition goes on3 studies · 23 archers measuredStatus since 2011
• CorroboratedArchers are more aroused in competition than in training5 studies · 50 archers measuredStatus since 2025
• CorroboratedAt 70 metres a top archer averages about nine points per arrow7 studies · 72 archers measuredStatus since 2012
• CorroboratedEven in competition at the highest level, most arrows are not tens4 studies · 3,212 archers measuredStatus since 2024

See all claims on competition and scoring