Most competitive archers say they have fallen apart in competition at least once
2 studies · 270 archers measured
The summary today
Two surveys, in two countries, point the same way. Among sixty-nine British competitive archers at county level or above, inside a sample that also included eighty-six golfers, 75.4% say they have at least once had a dramatic drop in performance that was out of their control, against 61.6% of the golfers; and those who report it do not differ in age or in years spent at their highest level. Among a hundred and fifteen competitors from the Italian federation, approached at competitions in Lazio, the average is three episodes in the last six months, from one to seven, each lasting six training sessions on average, and nearly three in ten say they are in the middle of one as they fill in the questionnaire. The limit lies in how the counting is done. Respondents decide for themselves whether the label fits, the British question is very broad, recall is retrospective, and in the Italian sample nobody reports zero episodes, even though the authors say they drew participants at random from the 2,325 registered archers in Lazio: either the definition is very wide, or random selection did not survive recruitment at the competitions. Neither study checks the accounts against competition scores.
Also phrased as: "almost every archer has choked in competition"; "choking happens to everyone"; "every archer falls apart in competition at some point"; "how common choking is in archery"; "cracking under pressure in competition"
In practice
On the shooting line archers say that sooner or later everyone has the competition where the shot simply will not come, and that anyone who has shot for years has been through it at least once.
Evidence
-
2020
For Archers Published later
69 British competitive archers at county level or above, inside an online sample of 155 athletes with 86 golfers: asked whether they had ever had a dramatic drop in performance that was out of their control, 75.4% of the archers say yes, against 61.6% of the golfers and 67.7% of the whole sample. 28.4% of the 155 report both yips and choking. The definition is left to the respondent and the recall covers a whole career.
Personality Predictors of Yips and Choking Susceptibility · Philip Clarke, David Sheffield, Sally Akehurst
-
2020
Context Archers Published later
Across the 155 athletes, archers and golfers together, those who report choking are neither younger nor older than those who do not (U = 1039, p = 0.31), and have not spent more or fewer years at their highest level (U = 2085.5, p = 0.07). The comparison is not made on the archers alone.
Personality Predictors of Yips and Choking Susceptibility · Philip Clarke, David Sheffield, Sally Akehurst
-
2021
For Archers Published later
115 competitive archers registered in Lazio, aged 10 to 74, approached at official competitions in the summer of 2019: over the last six months they report an average of 3.08 choking episodes, from a minimum of one to a maximum of seven; an episode lasts on average 6.02 training sessions (standard deviation 9.75), and 34 archers (29.6%) say they are in a choking period as they fill in the questionnaire. The methods report no definition of choking given to respondents, and the minimum of one episode means nobody reports zero.
An Exploratory Pilot Study on Choking Episodes in Archery · Pierluigi Diotaiuti, Stefano Corrado, Stefania Mancone, Lavinia Falese, Fábio Hech Dominski, Alexandro Andrade
Status history
- 2020 Reported The first figure on the question arrives: among sixty-nine British competitive archers, 75.4% say they have at least once had a dramatic drop in competition that was out of their control, more than the golfers in the same survey (61.6%). Those who report it do not differ in age or in years at their highest level, so it is not confined to newcomers or to veterans. It is a retrospective survey based on self-diagnosis, in one country: the evidence on archers exists and is limited.
- 2021 Reported The first sample made up only of archers arrives, in another country: a hundred and fifteen competitors from the Italian federation report on average three choking episodes in the last six months, each lasting six sessions on average, and 29.6% are in the middle of one as they fill in the questionnaire. Two independent studies point the same way, but both ask people to recognise themselves in a label and to remember, and in the Italian sample nobody reports zero episodes: with measures like these the status does not rise beyond reported.
Related
Related articles
- Choking in archery: how common it is, who it happens to and what goes with itHow many archers say they fall apart in competition, what those who choke most often have in common, and how much pressure costs on measured scores.
- Do archers shoot worse in competition than in training? The body and the target, measuredIn competition the heart beats faster, yet measured accuracy does not drop: what studies comparing competition and training show, and where they stop.
Research lines
Cite
Campagna, M. (2026). Most competitive archers say they have fallen apart in competition at least once (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/choking-common-among-archers
@misc{campagna2026_chokingdiffusoarcieri,
author = {Campagna, Matteo},
title = {Most competitive archers say they have fallen apart in competition at least once},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/choking-common-among-archers},
note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}
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