Archery at the Paralympics

Archery is rooted in the history of the Paralympic movement.

The sport was used as a rehabilitation activity for injured veterans by Dr. Ludwig Guttmann at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the 1940s. He held the first archery tournament for 16 patients at the English hospital in 1948. The competition was run annually, and in 1952 a Dutch team participated, setting the foundation for an international event for impaired athletes and acting as a precursor to the Paralympic Games.

Archery was included at the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960 and has remained on the programme ever since.

International para archery was governed by the International Paralympic Committee until 2009, when ownership of the rules, promotion and regulation of the world championships, and responsibility for the archery events at the Paralympic Games, was transferred to World Archery.

The rules, particularly surrounding the classification and competition categories for para archery, have evolved significantly since para archery first started, with the last major update coming in 2014. Archers currently compete in open and W1 classification categories using recurve and compound bow at the Paralympic Games. The competition formats mirror the formats used in target archery.

The archery competitions at the Paralympic Games are often held in the same venue as the Olympic Games.

Notable Paralympians

Paola Fantato of Italy is archery’s winningest Paralympian, having collected five gold, one silver and two bronze for a total of eight medals across five Paralympic Games from 1988 to 2004.

Zahra Nemati made history at London 2012 when she became the first Iranian athlete to win gold at either the Olympic or Paralympic Games. She successfully defended her Paralympic Champion title at Rio 2016, having carried the flag of Iran during the opening ceremony, and also competed at the Olympic Games, finishing 33rd.

Great Britain is archery’s most successful nation at the Paralympic Games. The country has accrued 21 gold, 24 silver and 23 bronze for a total of 68 medals. Britain is one of three nations, the others being France and the USA, to have competed at all 16 editions of the event.

Para archer Neroli Fairhall of New Zealand, who won a gold medal at the Arnhem 1980 Paralympic Games, became the first paraplegic athlete to participate in the Olympic Games four years later in Los Angeles.