When Compound Archery Finally Enters the Olympics

After a long wait to appear in the highest caste of sports, compound archery will finally be contested at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. This opportunity came after LA 2028 added a number of competitions, one of which was in the archery branch. The entry of compound into the Olympics also gives new hope and goals for athletes in this discipline, including in Indonesia.

In November 2023, compound archers' dreams of competing at the Olympics seemed to be dashed when the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which oversees the Olympics, decided not to add the discipline to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Delegates at the International Olympic Committee Session only voted for five new sports, including baseball/softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse, and squash, to be included in the sports to be contested in Los Angeles.

At that time, Secretary General of World Archery, Tom Dielen, admitted that he was disappointed as were the compound athletes who had hoped that this archery discipline would be included in the Olympics. Even so, Dielen also believed that the discipline would appear in the Olympics eventually. "It's just a matter of when, not a matter of if, the compound archery competition will be added to the Olympics," he said.

The good news finally came in April 2025 after the IOC Executive Board decided on several changes for LA 2028. One of them was the addition of six mixed team events. This is the gateway to compound in the Olympics, namely through the mixed compound team event.

"This is a monumental step forward for this sport and for millions of mixed archers around the world who have long sought Olympic recognition," said the President of the World Archery Federation, Ugur Erdener, as quoted from the federation's official website.

The compound team event joins the existing five recurve events: men's and women's individual, men's and women's team, and mixed team. This brings the total number of archery medals available to six. This is the first time compound will compete at the Olympics since archery was reintroduced to the world's biggest sporting event in 1972 in Munich, Germany.

When it returned in 1972, archery only competed in men's and women's recurve individual events. Team events were introduced in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, and a fifth archery medal, the mixed recurve team, made its debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The addition of the mixed team format to combined archery ensures archery maintains equal gender divisions and athlete quotas at LA 2028.

Compound archery is a modern style of bow, invented in the United States, that uses pulleys to efficiently propel the arrow over long distances. The use of pulleys also reduces the draw load so the archer can hold the bow in a drawn position longer without fatigue.

This is what makes it different from recurve archery. Recurve bows curve outward at the tip. This gives more power and speed to the arrow.

Compound was still in its infancy when archery returned to the 1972 Munich Olympics and did not gain international popularity until many years later. Decades later, compound finally emerged as a competitive discipline in the 1990s and was competed alongside recurve at the 1995 World Archery Championships.

Since then, compound has gradually established itself in the elite world of competitive archery. Just 11 years after being added to the world championships, the discipline was included alongside recurve in the relaunched Archery World Cup in 2006, with the same prize money, the same events and the same exposure.

Last week, the World Archery Federation announced that the addition of the compound team event at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics would be accompanied by a reduction in quotas for other events. This is because, although archery has an additional event, the athlete quota limit remains at 128 people (64 men and 64 women). This sport is required to maintain universality with a high level of diversity of participants across countries and continents.

The World Archery Federation will propose to the IOC to field eight recurve teams, down from 12 at Paris 2024, to open up individual slots to more countries and protect the universality of the competition. A total of 12 mixed teams (24 athletes in total) will compete for the first compound medals at LA 2028.

"In order to implement additional slots within the existing quota, a format adjustment is necessary to ensure that as many world-class countries as possible still have the opportunity to compete in Los Angeles," said Secretary General of the World Archery Federation Tom Dielen.

Meanwhile, Indonesia last sent compound athletes to the multi-sport event at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games. At that time, Indonesia was represented by eight compound archers, two of whom played in the mixed team event, namely Ratih Zilizati Fadhly and Dhany Diva Pradana.

Based on the results of the second stage of the national selection in November 2024 at the Supersoccer Arena, Kudus, Central Java, Ratih and Dhany were selected as part of 16 athletes who secured a place in the national training camp. A total of eight compound athletes passed the selection. Eight other athletes filled the recurve discipline, including Diananda Choirunisa who has appeared in the Olympics twice.

They are being prepared for international events, the nearest being the SEA Games in Thailand 2025. In the 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia, archery was not contested, preventing the athletes from repeating the sweet story of the 2021 SEA Games in Vietnam. At that time, Indonesia emerged as the overall champion.

Indonesia won five gold medals and one silver. One gold came from the men's compound team through Prima Wisnu Wardhana, Hendika Putra Pertama, and Deki Hastian Andika. Prima is currently in the national training center after being selected through the second stage of the national selection.

The head coach of the Indonesian archery team, Lilies Handayani, said that the addition of the compound team number at the 2028 LA Olympics is good news for the archery world, including in Indonesia. Moreover, said Lilies, in Indonesia there are quite a lot of archers, starting from junior age, who focus on the compound discipline.

"Indonesian archers or people who like archery have a good picture of the future regarding compound. Those who do compound archery have a new goal, which is the Olympics," said Lilies.

"In the past, those with good technique and physique were advised to switch to recuve because their career path would be longer, but now they have the opportunity to focus on their discipline. Especially junior archers," said the former archer who, together with Nurfitriyana Saiman and Kusuma Wardhani, won a silver medal for Indonesia at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Lilies said, the athletes of the national training compound have also begun to be prepared to welcome LA 2028 in stages. One of them is by including them in international championships.

This year, both compound and recurve athletes will focus on participating in three archery championships, namely the Asian Cup in Singapore in June, the World Cup in Madrid, Spain in July, and the World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, in September.

“Compound seems easier because it can be more accurate, but this actually makes the shots have to hit everything because the benchmark for international events, the average result is already 10 all, meaning none of them miss. So it's more intense so the chances are tougher. Even so, this is a good opportunity for compound, including for Indonesia," said Lilies.