By the numbers: Olympic quota places

With the Aquece Rio Olympic test event in full swing, teams have their sights on the Games. For some athletes, it’s a sole mission to make their Olympic squads – while other nations still need to win invitations.

The top eight teams and 16 individual qualifiers in the recurve men’s and recurve women’s competitions at the Copenhagen 2015 World Archery Championships all won places at the Rio 2016 Olympics for their nations.

Countries could win a maximum of one team place (three athletes) or one individual place in Copenhagen, making a total of 64 spots awarded. Add in the six reserved for host nation Brazil – and, after one phase of Olympic qualifying, there’s 70 quota places assigned.

Countries by continent

At the World Archery Championships in 2011, Europe was the biggest winner, taking 34 quota places – but in 2015 it was Asia with 26. With Australia qualifying a men’s team, the pie split by four but the big switch was between the European teams and the Americas…

…some of which will have to do with the host countries. In 2011, London 2012 hosts Great Britain did not need to qualify a team, instead receiving the full home country six-athlete invitation. In 2015, that honour was reserved for Brazil (which qualified one athlete for the London Games) – while the Brits left Copenhagen empty handed.

Still, the slip is more dramatic. Europe lost 12 places, only half of those in Britain, while the Americas gained nine (Brazil’s five and four more). The other three in the difference went Oceania’s way, while Asia kept an even keel to qualify the same number of athletes for a second primary Olympic qualifier in a row: 26.

It’s the first time Asia has been the most successful continent at a primary qualifier for a Games.

Countries in total

Overall, projections pin the total number of countries that will shoot in Rio 2016 at 51. That’s four less than in London 2012 but still a high number considering just 128 athletes enter the Olympic archery event.

The difference is accounted for in the fact that fewer nations qualified a single athlete at Copenhagen 2015. Just four, in fact: Austria (for the first time since qualifying was a part of the Olympic Games), Canada, Poland and Venezuela.

Continental qualifiers

The next phase of the Olympic qualifying procedure is continental qualifying tournaments. At five events around the world, a total of 28 more spots will be awarded.

Championships in Africa, Europe and Asia will each assign three spots in both the men’s and women’s events (to the highest finishing teams with neither team or individual places already won) – as will the second stage of the 2016 Archery World Cup to athletes from the Americas. 

It’s the same procedure for the Oceania Championships, except there’s only two men’s and two women’s spaces available.

The remaining 30 places are awarded at the final qualifying event to the nation’s with the top three teams and top three individuals, taking into account the maximum quota rules – and by tripartite application, which help smaller and developing countries secure representation and keep the competition field diverse.

So, before we know it and by the end of May in 2016, we’ll have a pretty clear idea of who we’ll see take to the Rio 2016 arena to compete for Olympic gold.