State archery tournament coming to Louisville next weekend

State archery tournament coming to Louisville next weekend

FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – Kentucky will host the largest annual school archery tournament in the country March 28-30, when nearly 8,500 student archers from across the state compete in the Kentucky National Archery in the Schools (NASP) State Tournament.

Hosted at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville since 2004, the Kentucky tournament is now one of the largest state sporting competitions held anywhere.

Starting in Kentucky in 2002 with 21 initial schools, NASP has now been adopted by about 9,000 schools across the country. NASP is an in-school program introducing students in grades 4–12 to international-style target archery. Students learn about the sport of archery as part of their school’s curriculum and are then eligible to compete in school-hosted events for the opportunity to participate in state and national tournaments. Each year, more than one million students learn archery, and more than 80,000 compete in NASP tournaments.

“Archery is one of the fastest growing sports in the country today with the National Archery in the Schools Program continuing to grow not just in Kentucky but most every state, and a number of other countries,” said Lisa Johnson, state NASP coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “NASP provides schools with a sport that is core-content compliant fitting within school curriculum, is naturally inclusive of all types of students and is relatively inexpensive.”

The tournament will provide two distinct competitions – traditional bullseye shooting at a multi-ringed, flat target and 3D shooting on lifelike foam targets in the form of various North American game animals. High-scoring archers will move on to the NASP Eastern Nationals scheduled May 9-11, 2024, at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky.

One of the oldest sports in the world, humans developed archery for hunting, warfare and recreation. The first bow-shooting competitions took place in China during the Zhou dynasty (1027-256 B.C.). Featured at the Olympics in the early 20th century, archery returned as an Olympic sport in 1972. The 2024 Olympic Games at Les Invalides in Paris, France will include seven days of archery competition.