In qualification each individual archer will shoot 72 arrows to be ranked on their total score. The highest scoring man and woman decide seeds for the mixed team events and seeds for the team events are decided by ranking the highest scoring three archers of the same gender from one country. Do not distract another archer when they are shooting. If an archer is at full draw, wait before taking your place on the shooting line.

Competition is divided into ends. An archer shoots either 3 or 6 arrows per end, depending on the type of round. After each end, the competitors walk to the target to score and retrieve their arrows. An indoor competition is usually 20 ends of 3 arrows.Archery competitions may be held indoors or outdoors. Indoor rounds are normally shot at one distance, whereas outdoor competitions normally consist of several distances. For lists of tournament rounds, see section entitled Tournament Rounds.

In Japanese archery, known as Kyūdō, the bullseye is called "zuboshi". [5] The term is also used as idiomatic slang just as it is in English, to note that someone has done or said something that hits "right on the nose." The Grand National Archery Society runs two systems of classification: the main Classifications (for indoor and outdoor shooting) and Handicaps. To do this, they produce tables of scores for all recognised rounds and an archer's classification and handicap can be worked out from their scores, normally by a club's Record Officer.

Longbow archers can compete in traditional target archery tournaments alongside other bow types. They can also take part in traditional two-way longbow target shooting with two rows of targets at either end of a range. In some archery traditions, the term "gold" is used in preference to "bullseye". In target archery, hitting the center ring of an international target is worth 10 points, or 9 points if it's an Imperial target. Competitions consist of individual, mixed team and team events. A mixed team consists of one man and one woman archer, shooting with the same bowstyle, whereas a team consists of three archers of the same gender shooting with the same bowstyle.

The command Fast means stop shooting immediately and return the unshot arrow to the quiver. It is used when the situation becomes suddenly and unexpectedly dangerous. For Imperial rounds, the standard indoor distance is 20 yards (18m), with 5 dozen arrows being shot in a round known as a Portsmouth round. Outdoor distances range from 40 yards (37m) to 100 yards (91m), for seniors, and 10 yards (9.1m) to 80 yards (73m) for juniors. Source for tournament rounds: Dave Pritchard and Phil Hale, Bowmen Of The Tors: Handbook For New Archers DRP Publications, 2001] This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.The bullseye or bull's eye has, since 1833, [1] been the name for the center of a target and, by extension, since 1857, [1] has been given to any throw, toss, or shot that hits the center. centimetres (48in) faces are used in Olympic competition. A variant of the 80-centimetre (31in) face, called a "Spot" may be used when shooting WA rounds. This variant shows only the inner 6 rings of a full 80-centimetre (31in) face. There are also versions of the 40-and-60-centimetre (16 and 24in) targets known as the "3 Spot". The targets contain 3 instances of the inner 5 rings of the 40-and-60-centimetre (16 and 24in) faces arranged in a line or an equilateral triangle. This is to stop competitors from damaging their own arrows by shooting a "robin hood". Center of a target A dart in the inner bullseye The "gold" is the yellow circle at the centre of this archery target. Recurve and barebow matches are decided using the set system - whereby archers shoot the points required to beat their opponents - while compound matches are decided on cumulative score.