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60 free Archery trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free Archery trivia questions with answers. Archery is one of the oldest human skills and one of the most precise Olympic sports, and this quiz covers both ends of it. It runs from the 60,000-year-old arrowheads of Sibudu Cave and the Scythian composite bow to the English longbow at Crécy and Agincourt, the Mary Rose bows, Roger Ascham's Toxophilus, the 18th-century Toxophilite Society, the York Round, and archery's return to the Olympics in 1972. It also covers the kit and the jargon: recurve versus compound, let-off, fletching and the cock feather, nocks and quivers, bracers and tabs, the clicker, dry firing and the archer's paradox, plus the target face colours, the 70-metre distance, South Korea's medal haul, Kim Woo-jin's five golds, kyudo's asymmetric yumi, Robin Hood, William Tell and Odysseus. Easy questions ask what an archer's container of arrows is called and what colour the centre of the target is. Medium ones cover Olympic history, bow types and famous battles. Hard ones want the man who invented the compound bow, the year FITA was founded and where, the draw weight of a Mary Rose longbow and the name of the arrow-fletching that limits range. Every answer has been checked against reference articles on the sport, its equipment and its history, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'archery' comes from the Latin 'arcus', meaning what?
Bow
A person who practises it is an archer, bowman or, more grandly, a toxophilite.
Q 02What is the container that archers have traditionally used to carry their arrows called?
Quiver
It can take many forms, worn on the back, hip or even attached to the bow.
Q 03The oldest known evidence of arrows, dating back 60,000 to 72,000 years, was found in which country?
South Africa
Bone and stone arrowheads came from sites such as Sibudu Cave; the oldest complete bows come from a swamp in Denmark.
Q 04Which nomadic people are thought to have invented the composite bow and horse archery?
The Scythians
Short, powerful composite bows suited the steppe; the Han Chinese called their Xiongnu neighbours 'Those Who Draw the Bow'.
Q 05The ancient Egyptians called Nubia 'Ta-Seti', which translates as what?
The Land of the Bow
Nubians were renowned archers, and by the 16th century BC the Egyptians themselves were using composite bows in war.
Q 06Roughly how long was the English longbow?
6 feet
Bows recovered from the Mary Rose ranged from 6 ft 2 in to nearly 10 ft, averaging 6 ft 7 in.
Q 07Most surviving Renaissance longbows, along with 3,500 arrows, were recovered from which shipwreck?
The Mary Rose
Henry VIII's warship sank off Portsmouth in 1545; its bows had estimated draw weights of 100 to 185 pounds.
Q 08Robert Hardy estimated the draw force of the recovered Tudor warship longbows at what, at a 30-inch draw?
150-160 lbf
A modern longbow typically draws 60 lbf or less, measured at 28 inches.
Q 09The Battle of Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415, the feast day of which saint?
St Crispin
Shakespeare's Henry V gives the king his 'band of brothers' speech on the morning of the battle.
Q 10Which of these Hundred Years' War battles was the EARLIEST longbow success against the French?
Sluys
Sluys was a naval battle in 1340; Crécy followed in 1346, Poitiers in 1356 and Agincourt in 1415.
Q 11In which country were the earliest known crossbows invented, in the first millennium BCE?
China
They shaped the Qin unification wars; crossbows reached Europe around the tenth century.
Q 12Toxophilus, the first book on archery written in English, was published in 1545 by which scholar?
Roger Ascham
It was dedicated to Henry VIII, who rewarded the author with a pension of £10 a year.
Q 13Sir Ashton Lever founded which fashionable London archery club in 1781?
The Toxophilite Society
The Royal Company of Archers, formed in 1676, is one of the oldest sporting bodies in the world.
Q 21Neroli Fairhall of New Zealand made Olympic history in archery at Los Angeles 1984 as what?
The first paraplegic competitor
She competed from a wheelchair.
Q 22The 2012 London Olympic archery competition was held at which famous venue?
Lord's Cricket Ground
Athens used the Panathinaikos Stadium, Rio the Sambodromo and Paris 2024 the Esplanade des Invalides.
Q 23World Archery, the sport's governing body, was founded as FITA in 1931 in which city?
Lwów (now Lviv)
The body, headquartered in Lausanne, changed its name from FITA to World Archery in 2011 for its 80th anniversary.
Q 14Which archer won the Grand National meeting 11 times in a row and wrote an influential 1856 guide?
Horace A. Ford
Ford pioneered new technique; by 1889 only 50 archery clubs were left in Britain as croquet and tennis took over.
Q 15In which year did archery first appear at the Olympic Games?
1900
Paris 1900 held seven men's events; women's and team archery followed at St Louis in 1904.
Q 16After a long absence, archery returned to the Olympic programme in which year?
1972
It had been missing between 1920 and 1972; the Munich Games held men's and women's individual double FITA rounds.
Q 17Which country has dominated Olympic archery, winning 32 of 44 gold medals since 1984?
South Korea
France has appeared most often, 15 times, but Korea's archers, men and women, have owned the podium.
Q 18At what distance do Olympic archers shoot in all five events?
70 metres
The 64 archers in each individual event first shoot a 72-arrow ranking round at that distance.
Q 19Which type of bow was the only kind permitted at the Olympics until compound events were added for 2028?
Recurve
Compound bows are already used in some Paralympic categories.
Q 20Who holds the record for most Olympic archery gold medals, with five?
Kim Woo-jin
The South Korean beat Brady Ellison in a tiebreaker for the 2024 individual title and shot a world-record 700/720 ranking round in Rio.
Q 24On a World Archery target face, what colour are the 9 and 10 rings?
Gold
From the outside in the colours run white, black, blue, red and gold, each split into two scoring rings.
Q 25How wide is the target face used for 70 and 90 metre shooting?
122 cm
Indoor faces at 18 metres are 40 or 60 cm.
Q 26The innermost scoring zone on a target, used to break ties, is commonly labelled with which letter?
X
In indoor compound competition it becomes the 10 ring itself.
Q 27Who invented the compound bow, filing a US patent in 1966?
Holless Wilbur Allen
Developed in North Kansas City, Missouri, it has become the most widely used bow in North America.
Q 28On a compound bow, the drop in holding force at full draw compared with peak draw weight is called what?
Let-off
Typical values are 65% to 80%; a 60 lb bow with 80% let-off needs only about 12 lb of force to hold at full draw.
Q 29How many fletchings does the most common arrow configuration have?
Three
Two makes an arrow unstable in flight; up to six have been used.
Q 30The odd-coloured fletching set perpendicular to the bow when the arrow is nocked is called what?
The cock feather
The other two are the hen feathers; the term 'index fletch' is also used.