Pole Archery
Pole archery, also called Popinjay, was an archery event that were contested in the early days of the Olympics. The pole archery event consists of shooting artificial birds that were placed on cross beams suspended from a large pole. The event was included in the Olympics in 1900 and 1920, and has not been on the program since that time.
1900 Olympics
There were two pole archery events in 1900, the Sur la Perche à la Herse, and Sur la Perche à la Pyramide.
1920 Olympics
Two types of pole archery events were conducted in the 1920 Olympics, an individual event and team event. For each of the two types there were two codes of competition, small birds and large birds, depending on the size of the birds that were used as targets.
The event was contested exclusively by archers from Belgium and the medals were swept by them in all the pole archery contests. In the individual small birds event, Edmond Van Moer won the gold medal, Louis Van De Perck won the silver medal, and Joseph Hermans took the bronze medal. In the individual large birds event, Edmond Cloetens won the gold medal, Louis Van De Perck took the silver medal, and Firmin Flamand finished with the bronze medal.
In the small birds and large birds team event only the Belgian team took part and were handed the gold medal for both the events.
Related Pages
- Full list of all Discontinued Events
- Other discontinued Archery Events from the Olympics
- More about Popinjay — another name for pole archery.
- About Archery at the Olympics
- More about the Sport of Archery
Any comments, suggestions, or corrections? Please let us know.
Current Events