Archery has a long history in China. “Bai Bu Chuan Yang (hit a slender leaf a hundred steps away”, an idiom from The Strategies of Warring States (the Western Zhou Period), describes the superb skills in archery. On March 12, the Hangzhou Archery League with 278 amateurs, hosted by the Hangzhou Municipal Sports Bureau, came to a close at Fuyang Yinhu Sports Center, the venue for the Asian Games archery event.

The venue accommodated nearly 50 players shooting arrows at the same time, with bow in the left hand and string in the right hand. This is, at the call of the local authority to let more people access the Asian Games’ sport venues, also the center’s first event open to the public. 

The players, altogether signed up as 25 teams, were divided into three groups each for primary school students, junior high school students or adults. It outnumbered all previous competitions in terms of the population of players. Ge Ruihao, from Qiantang Bow Club, was a junior high school player. He has been to the venue as a “citizen guest”, but this time, he felt different as a contestant. “It’s spacious, and this’ll give you a different air when shooting,” said him.  

The 60 scorers, all in a red waistcoat, were in the spotlight. They were the volunteers from the University of Traditional Chinese Medicine for the Asian Games. “This event is a hands-on experience to get prepared for the upcoming National Archery Tour this April.” According to Yan Zhicheng, head of the venue operations, the success of this event, a precious experience to his team fellows, will help them better understand the archery event.

Yinhu Sports Center, covering 413 mu of land, consists of an integrated gym, a flying saucer field, an archery gym and a modern pentathlon field. This will be the venue for shooting, archery and modern pentathlon to generate 47 gold medals. The form of the whole structure borrows the idea from the roll painting classic “Dwelling in Fuchun Mountains”, a stylish building armed with modern technologies.