Some outtakes:

“The Sara Lopez” factor

The Compound Women’s category is definitely peaking in the early twenties, between ages 20 and 24. From the 69 medals that make up this bar chart, a whopping 13 (10G, 0S, 3B) are won by the current World nr. 2 Sara Lopez from Colombia. Considering the fact that she started racking-up individual podiums as early as 2013, earlier data would probably pull the average age a little more down. 

Recurves Golden Boys

The first peak in the Recurve Men’s category can be seen in the very early 20’s. Almost a third of the medals are won by archers aged 20 to 22 (22 out of 75). Almost half of these where won by two archers. Korea’s Lee Woo Seok took 6 medals in his first two full seasons on the tour in 2018 and 2019. (Yes, he already was on the golden Korean team at the World Cup in Medellin 2015. But in that year they sent a ‘B’-team to Colombia, since the ‘A’-team was doing the Rio Test Event the week after). The second one is Steve Wijler from the Netherlands, who won a total of 4 medals in his first two seasons (2017 and 2018), after blasting to the scene winning gold at his first ever World Cup in Shanghai.

The 30’s are the new 20’s

Both Men’s divisions suddenly peak again in the early thirties. 24 out of 144 medals where won by archers between the ages 30 and 32. Archers like Im Dong Hyun from Korea, who in 2017 suddenly came back to the international scene, scoring three podiums and finishing the season off in style on top of the podium at the World Outdoor Championships in Mexico. Or USA’s Brady Ellison, who turned 30 late 2018 and took 5 podiums (3G, 0S, 2B) in 2019 (one of his best seasons to date), including the biggest crown at the WAOC in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. A crown that was missing on his endless list of accomplishments (It should be noted that the 10+ medals Brady won pre-2016 would probably balance the scale a little more). Other notable archers (aren’t they all?) winning multiple podiums just after turning 30; Braden Gellenthien from the US and Italy’s Mauro Nespoli.

Compound’s Golden Oldies

Medalling after your fourties? Ask Reo Wilde (USA), Patrick Coghlan (AUS), Esmaeil Ebadi (IRI), Sophie Dodemont or Dominique Genet (both FRA) how that feels.

Tan Ya-Think she will ever win gold (again)?

One of the most decorated archers in this research must be Tan Ya-Ting from Chinese Taipei. Ten medals won over four seasons puts her T2 together with Korea’s Kim Woojin. What is more notable though, is that non of these 10 medals where golds (0G, 2S, 8B). Looking back at her World Archery profile, a single individual gold medal is seen, first place at the World University Championships in Poland (2014). Hopefully those 13 gold medals in team and mix-team make up for that. Will Tan Ya-Ting ever win that individual gold medal?

Conclusion

So how does this data compare to other sports? Are archers winning young? Or are they peaking late? To find the answer, I’ve compared my data to a research I’ve found conducted by The Stats Zone2 on the average age3 of medal winners at the Olympics4. I will not summarise the whole research, but instead just take out 2 key points.

On average age for men and women, the research shows ages 26.2 for men and 25.2 for women. This is fairly comparable to the archery data of 26.4 and 24.7 years respectively.

Looking at the sports graph, the TSZ research puts archery on an average age of 24.7 years old. Since archery at the Olympics is recurve only, we can compare this to the 24.9 years my research shows. And with an average age just below 25, archery ranks as the 12th youngest sport of 43 ranked, very comparable with table tennis.

Notes

1) 2016: WC Shanghai (CHN), WC Medellin (COL), WC Antalya (TUR), EAOC Nottingham (GBR), OG Rio de Janeiro (BRA). 2017: WC Shanghai (CHN), WC Antalya (TUR), WC Salt Lake City (USA), WG Wroclaw (POL), WC Berlin (GER), WAOC Mexico-City (MEX). 2018: WC Shanghai (CHN), WC Antalya (TUR), WC Salt Lake City (USA), WC Berlin (GER), PAC Medellin (COL), EAOC Legnica (POL), AG Jakarta (INA). 2019: WC Medellin (COL), WC Shanghai (CHN), WC Antalya (TUR), WAOC ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NED), EC Minsk (BLR), WC Berlin (GER), TE Tokyo (JPN), PAG Lima (PER).
2) https://www.thestatszone.com/archive/olympic-sports-how-does-peak-age-vary-13812
3) It’s unclear how the average age in TSZ’s research is calculated. In my research, the age on which the athlete wins is calculated by dividing the day-age by 365.25. Example: winning a medal 3 days before your 25th birthday will give you an age of 24.99. In the TSZ research, it looks like the medal winners are shown with year-age, the same athlete as in the example before will still have the age of 24, even 3 days before his 25th birthday. On estimate, assuming that birthdays are well divided over the year, this will give my research a six months higher average age.
4) Data of Olympics 1992-2012. All athletes winning a medal are taken into account. In case of individual athletes winning more than one medal, the age at each medal is used. For team sports, the age of every team-member is used.