Former JMU archer qualifies 12th at Olympics competition

Former James Madison archer Jacob Wukie finished 12th in the ranking round for men’s individual archery at the 2012 London Olympics, July 27. The first day of competition, held at London’s Lord’s Cricket Ground, was just for seeding for the head-to-head elimination competition.

Wukie scored 336 in his opening set of 36 arrows, which ranked 15th, and followed it up with a 337 in his final 36 shots for a total of 673 points. He had 33 scores of 10 in the rankings round with 11 bullseyes. He is slated to take on No. 53 Jayanta Talukdar of India in the round of 64 on July 30 and August 1, with the winner advancing on those same days. Wukie and Talukdar actually shot together on the same target during the ranking round. The remaining rounds, including the medal matches, will be held on Friday, August 3. Following the completion of the rankings round, the competition goes to a 64-person bracket, with the top seed taking on the No. 64 seed and so on through the bracket.

South Korea’s Dong Hyun Im set a new world record in the rankings round, scoring a total of 699 with 50 marks of 10 points and 22 bullseyes.

Wukie also teamed with current world No. 1 Brady Ellison and Jake Kaminski to put the top-ranked United States in fourth among the team rankings, earning the U.S. a bye in the first round. The U.S. team automatically advances to Saturday’s quarterfinals and will avoid facing any of the top three seeds (South Korea, France and China) in that round. All rounds of the team competition will take place on Saturday, with the team quarterfinals starting at 10 a.m. and the gold medal match at 1 p.m.

The object of the sport is to shoot arrows as close to the centre of a target as possible. Olympic Archery targets are 122cm in diameter, with the gold ring at the centre (worth a maximum 10 points) measuring just 12.2cm. Athletes shoot at the target from a distance of 70m. Athletes compete with recurve bows, distinctive as the limbs curve outwards at the top.  Men and women compete separately, both as individuals and in teams of three.

At the start of the competition all athletes take part in a ranking round. Athletes must shoot 72 arrows in 12 phases of six arrows each, with each athlete allowed four minutes per phase. The total score of all 72 arrows determines the rankings of each athlete. These are used to make the seedings for both the Individual and the Team events.