Archery? What’s that?

A sport. You use a bow, an shoot and arrow. You try to hit the target with the arrow.

Didn’t people do that 10,000 years ago?

Yes. People had bows and arrows then in Japan, the Middle East and many other parts of the world. But it wasn’t a sport. Soldiers used them in wars, and hunters used them to shoot animals for food.

Then what happened?

In the 12th century people started making guns, which were much better than bows and arrows. So archery almost disappeared.

‘Almost’? What do you mean ‘a(chǎn)lmost’?

In the 1700’s in England, medieval things became fashionable. Archery became popular again.

Is this when archery became a sport?

That’s right. Archery competitions were a great social network then. Men and women used them to meet, flirt and fall in love.

So if someone wanted to get married, it was a good idea to take up archery?

Exactly. Apparently some people thought that women looked very beautiful when they were holding a bow!

How exciting! So I suppose it was a very popular Olympic sport then?

Not really. In the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, only three countries sent archers. And they were all men. And then there were no Olympic archery competitions for many years.

Oh dear. So did archery go out of fashion again?

Well, the real problem was that every country had its own rules about archery. Archery couldn’t be an Olympic sport without international rules.

And are there international rules now?

Yes, there are. Archery became an Olympic sport again in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.

So who are the best archers in the world nowadays?

The South Koreans have dominated the sport for several years now. The current Olympic Men’s Champion is Viktor Ruban from Ukraine.?And China and Britain won several gold medals in the Paralympic archery events in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

射箭：

用弓把箭射出并射中預(yù)定目標(biāo)，打在靶上的技藝。助弓的彈力將箭射出，在一定的距離內(nèi)比賽準(zhǔn)確性的體育運(yùn)動(dòng)項(xiàng)目，為射箭運(yùn)動(dòng)。

遠(yuǎn)在1萬(wàn)年前的中石器時(shí)代，人類(lèi)就發(fā)明了弓箭來(lái)狩獵捕魚(yú)。以后很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間，弓箭又是用于戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的武器之一，現(xiàn)在弓箭作為人們喜歡的體育運(yùn)動(dòng)項(xiàng)目得以存在下來(lái)?，F(xiàn)代射箭運(yùn)動(dòng)于14世紀(jì)起源于英國(guó)，它由武士的軍事需要演變成娛樂(lè)運(yùn)動(dòng)。

[key words]

bow 弓
bowstring 弓弦?
arrow 箭
target 靶子
fletching 上翎
nock 箭尾端搭弦處
shooting an arrow 射箭