The Sport
The sport is open to athletes with physical impairments who may shoot with assistive devices allowed under classification rules. The sport tests accuracy, strength and concentration.
Eligible Impairment Types are Impaired muscle power, Athetosis, Impaired passive range of movement, Hypertonia, Limb deficiency, Ataxia.
Para Archery includes specific competition categories for athletes with certain classifications: W1, compound open and recurve open.
The target size and distance archers stand from the target differs based on the competition category. In individual events, archers shoot 72 arrows at the 10-circle target, divided into 12 ends of six arrows each. Each athlete is allowed four minutes per round. The top-scoring athletes advance to 15-arrow head-to-head matches, which are single-elimination.
An archer using a recurve bow shoots at a target 1.22m in diameter, 70m away from the shooting line.
A compound archer shoots at a target 80cm in diameter and stands 50m away.
History
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.
Paralympic Debut
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.
Iran Para Archery
National Para Archery initially was
administered in 1994 and archers represented Team Iran at 1995 World
Competitions in the UK.
The first edition of the National
Championships was staged next year in 1995.
Currently, para athletes are under support
of I.R. Iran Sports Federation for the Enabled (IRISFE) which is member of the NPC to get
support.
Iran's Debutant
Zahra Nemati made history at London
2012 when she became the first Iranian athlete to win gold at either the
Olympic or Paralympic Games. Nemati successfully defended her Paralympic title at Rio 2016, having carried the flag of Iran during the opening ceremony,
and also competed at the Olympic Games, finishing 33rd. She won her third title at Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
Watch an introduction to Para Archery on Paralympic Sport A-Z: Archery