Do Olympic Archers Always Hit Gold? | Survivorship Bias

A discussion on the perceived ease of Olympic archery. Why do they always hit perfect shots, and should the game be changed to make it even harder?

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[SkunkworksProps]

"Archery is too easy!" - said no one who has ever actually tried archery.

[MommaJennishere]

I’ve just gotten into archery and am now obsessed with watching Olympic archery. Not boring AT ALL if you have the slightest idea of the talent and control it takes to make those shots!!

[jeanlefranc]

As someone having started archery less than a year ago, I will confirm that regularly hitting a 9 or a 10 at 70 meters is superhuman.

[PXCharon]

Things people don't realize when they complain about "all that junk on the bow making it too easy"

How much their hands shake.
Magnified sights do not make shooting easier, they only make seeing what you're shooting at long distance possible.
Recurve bow sights aren't magnified.
Hitting a CD at 70m from an unstable platform with no consistent forward reference is luck.
They couldn't do it with a stabilized bow, sight, and matched arrows, let alone their trad stick...

[DonPablo-TV]

“How could Messi miss a penalty kick”
By someone that couldn’t run 10 steps to the ball.
I did a video in my channel where I show in one part the difference between what the camera shows in Tv - with a telephoto lens that compresses everything - against what the archer sees. BIG DIFFERENCE!

[typhoon]

You'll get closer to the olympics than you think. I started archery as a mid-life crisis ten years ago. My best now is 330 for three dozen and 649 for a WA70. Looking at previous olympics those scores would be mid-ranking. However, getting in your national team is a different matter entirely...

[ft]

A criticism of televised archery at the Olympics is that you rarely see the distance involved, you see the archer in one half and the target in the other. If they showed how far they're actually shooting then I think more people would appreciate it.

[hallmountfilms]

Never shot an arrow in their life:
"If i competed I would blow the comp away. I was great at sports in highschool."

[TrevC-coxk]

Only the one's that make it look easy, make it to the end.

[lordcarnorjax]

I know why they don't shoot 90m's any more (too hard to find the space and 70m fits across a football/soccer field making stadiums a good fit) but 90m's would probably separate the field more. The top archers would still do well but going from 70m to 90m is quite a jump. Or they could switch to the 80cm face at 70m from the 122cm face. I've shot 80cm at 60m before and damn that was hard compared to 122cm at 70m.

[fire]

My 2 cents: perhaps the events should be modified as the competition progresses from qualifiers to quarter finals to semi finals to finals. As you rightly pointed out, people get more consistent near the finals because the inconsistent ones are weeded out. I also agree with your claim that people tend to find consistency a bit boring to watch. But... maybe the finals should be modified to be "harder" than the qualifiers? For example, if the qualifiers are shot at 30m, perhaps the finals should be shot at 40m to help the audience see the relative differences between the more consistent archers in the finals?

(Apologies if 30m or 40m are simply unrealistic ranges; I don't actually shoot bows and arrows much and I can't consistently hit the haybale at 10m myself)

[-Winnie-Poo]

When I watch the games, I found them suprisingly inaccurate. The boring thing is they only shoot at a fixed distance.

[Moogle]

anyone who actually watches or does archery knows they rarely ever always hit gold lol. Just look at the olympics lol.

[juanduque]

lets make it an actual challenge, have moving targets lol