Story: Archery, fencing, shooting and military re-enactment

Archery in schools (3rd of 4)

Archery in schools

Chloe McClaren and Manasui Narula compete in a schools archery competition in Auckland in 2005. In 2013 the popularity of the sport was growing, and an archery-in-schools programme, including inter-school competitions, was being run. The students use modern recurve bows, named for the reverse curve at the tips of the limbs. The limbs are made of layers of fibreglass, carbon, wood or syntactic foam, and the riser (rigid central section joining the limbs) of wood, carbon, aluminium alloy or magnesium alloy. The risers can be seen in this photograph, but the reverse curve cannot. Recurve bows are the only ones allowed in Olympic competition, but in 2013 they were no longer the most commonly used in New Zealand. Compound bows – which use a pulley system to increase the draw-and-release power of a bow – were developed in the early 1960s, and have become the most commonly used bow.

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New Zealand Herald
Reference: 030705NZHGBARCHERY1.JPG
Photograph by Greg Bowker

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How to cite this page:

Megan Cook, 'Archery, fencing, shooting and military re-enactment - Archery', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/40809/archery-in-schools (accessed 25 April 2024)

Story by Megan Cook, published 5 Sep 2013, updated 1 Jan 2015