The Olympic Bow

With its sexy appeal, colorful contrast and outlandish design, who wouldn't want an Olympic Recurve? It speaks volumes, but then you have to wonder what is an Olympic Recurve?

Let's take a trip back down memory lane to see how the Olympic recurve bow came about.

Archery as a sport has been around for centuries. The bow itself without using the words Olympic is older than mankind, part of the ages of the AD, BC, Middle Ages. I can write a whole history just on the bow itself.

In the 1900s Archery made its first appearance in the Paris, France Olympic Games followed by 1904 in St Louis, Missouri. The Archery portion continued till the 1930s, taking a break for 50 years, returning back in the 1970s. Hubert Van Innis was the first Olympic Archer who won 6 gold and 3 silver medals, the most decorated Archer in history during the early 1900s. The first distance they used to shoot was 50 meters. (55 yards). Archery returns back officially to the Olympic Games in 1972, Munich, Germany.

During the 50 years break, Olympic Archers still continue competing in other tournaments under the sanction of the NFAA and NAA. As the decades evolved, NAA now renamed to USA Archery wanted Archery to return back to the Olympics.

The first Olympic Recurve bow was nothing more than a traditional wood bow used with long wood arrows attached with feathers.

During the 1960s, engineers realized in order for Archers to shoot in the next Olympic Games they would need to develop a bow for shooters to shoot longer distances with added equipment. Essential the traditional style wood bow would begin taking a new shape with elegance, stronger wood, sights, and stabilizers little essential items making the bow bling eventually being label an Olympic Recurve. The first category of Olympic bows to define the Olympic Archery portion of the tournament. 

In the 1980s we continue to future along with the development of the Olympic Recurves going from a one-piece traditional bow to a breakdown bow. The next step for engineers was figuring out different types of materials to use while adding value and the strength of the bow. Now that the Olympic Recurve was breakable into multiple sections, the engineers along with the manufactures would begin production of Aluminum Risers of which would be the center portion of the bow.

As the years pass Engineers and Manufacture wanted to test the durability of Risers utilizing different types of material composites, yet needing to ensure the material was durable and cost-effective. From wood to Aluminum, today we have a wide variety of Olympic Risers made from Magnesium, Carbon, and Bamboo.

The next component during production is the most important section called the Limbs. The limbs are the crucial component of the bow. It's the power, the weight, the stability of the bow. It's the portion which makes the arrows take off. Without the limbs, you have no bow. The fabulous part about an Olympic bow is the ability to change the limbs in order for the archer to continue to grow.

Limbs come in different sizes, a variety of weights and different composite materials such as all wood, wood fiberglass, carbon, bamboo, and foam. You can have weights from 20lb to 50lbs. All these weights depend on Archer's age along with the Archers skill level.

There are a few other components that make an Olympic Bow. First, adding a sight not to be confused with a scope, stabilizers a counterbalancing system to keep your bow straight and tipping forward on Archers release and last a finger tab. From time to time Archers will place vibration dampeners or suppressors on the limbs to keep the bow quite and help reduce vibration. These 2 items sight and stabilizers are actually what makes the complete set up of the Olympic Bow. If you removed these items your bow automatically falls back into a traditional bow. 

Final point, Today’s Olympic bows have come a very long way from the 1970s and will continue to evolve. You find them in color, elegance, fun designs and a wide variety of beginners to advanced bows for each archer. As the sport keeps evolving and creating bigger and strong teams the Olympic Committee continues to show the Archery community interest and support. 

  

Right - First Olympic Bow 1904 Olympics,  Center - 1970 Olympics first full Olympic Set up the bow, Left - 2000 color along is added into bows.

Hopefully, you have found all this information valuable and gives you an idea about Olympic Bows.
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USA Archery
National Archery Field Association
World Archery
Archery Shooter Association