Field Sports in the Olympics

The opening ceremony begins in a few hours.  London’s Heathrow Airport has reported an increase of 47,000 daily passengers as spectators and athletes pour in from all over the world.  In short, the 2012 Olympic Games are drawing near.

While we will certainly be watching as many of the events as we can, you can bet we’ll be glued to the TV during those sports closest to our hearts: shooting, archery, and equestrian.  While we know that many of you are intimately familiar with these three sports, we thought it might be helpful to offer a quick overview of their structure for the rest of our readers.

Shooting:

The “shooting” heading actually encompasses 10 separate events, including a range of distances, shooting positions, and targets.  In pistol and rifle events, competitors either shoot a specified number of shots at a stationary target within a certain time limit, or they may shoot at targets that briefly face the competitor and then turn away (example: Women’s 25m pistol).