Left-handed archers shoot higher scores than right-handed archers
3 studies · 274 archers measured
The summary today
The only comparison is a Turkish study from 2017, in a journal with questionable editorial standards: at the national women's compound championship the five left-handed archers out of forty-four finished the 72 arrows at 50 metres with a mean of 670.6 points against 561.7 for the thirty-nine right-handers, and held steady between the first and second half of the round. The figure is striking, but it does not hold up well. The left-handers are five, picked out by a handedness questionnaire rather than by the side they shoot from; the right-handers' half-round means do not add up to their total; and the same study counts 11.4 per cent left-handers among those archers, the share the authors give for the general population. If being left-handed meant higher scores, more of them would turn up at the top: among the top fifteen men and women in recurve in 2024 there are four out of thirty, 13 per cent, and among 200 young archers at a European championship 11.5 per cent draw with the left hand. The registry reports the 2017 study, but because of the venue it does not use it to decide the status, which remains not studied.
Also phrased as: "left-handed advantage in archery"; "left-handed archers are better"; "left-handedness and score"; "shooting left-handed"
In practice
The idea goes round that left-handers have an edge in archery, because of the eye, the brain or a habit of doing things the other way round, and that a left-hander should therefore shoot left-handed.
Evidence
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2017
Context Archers Published later
Venue with questionable editorial standards: this result does not count towards the status. 44 Turkish compound archers at the senior national championship, 72 arrows at 50 metres: 670.6 ± 14.1 points for the 5 left-handers against 561.7 ± 99.6 for the 39 right-handers, t = 2.146, p = 0.020. The hand is the dominant one on the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory: it is not clear which side the left-handers shot from.
The Examination of the Relationship between Left-Handedness and Success in Elite Female Archers Questionable venue · Recep Gursoy, Suleyman Sahin, Mehmet Dalli, Kursat Hazar, Eser Aggon
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2017
Context Archers Published later
Venue with questionable editorial standards: this result does not count towards the status. In the same study the left-handers are more consistent between the two halves of the round, 334.8 ± 6.9 and 335.8 ± 8.8, while for the right-handers the values are 227.9 ± 49.6 and 283.3 ± 53.1 (p = 0.015 and 0.035). The right-handers' first-half mean is not compatible with their total or with the overall mean of 284.4, so these figures need handling with care.
The Examination of the Relationship between Left-Handedness and Success in Elite Female Archers Questionable venue · Recep Gursoy, Suleyman Sahin, Mehmet Dalli, Kursat Hazar, Eser Aggon
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2017
Context Archers Published later
The left-handers are 5 out of 44, 11.4 per cent, against the 10 to 13 per cent the authors give for the general population: among these top archers there is no sign that the sport selects for left-handers.
The Examination of the Relationship between Left-Handedness and Success in Elite Female Archers Questionable venue · Recep Gursoy, Suleyman Sahin, Mehmet Dalli, Kursat Hazar, Eser Aggon
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2024
Context Archers Published later
Among the top 15 in the May 2024 recurve world ranking, for each sex, 4 archers out of 30 shoot from the left, 13 per cent: 1 man and 3 women. There is no score comparison between left- and right-handers.
Technical performance differences in elite Olympic recurve archers · Mohsen Shafizadeh, Keith Davids
-
2024
Context Archers Published later
200 archers aged 13 to 20 from 34 nations at a European youth championship, three quarters recurve and one quarter compound: 11.5 per cent draw with the left hand, 23 out of 200, and 11 per cent have a dominant left arm. The study does not compare scores.
Injuries and Persistent Pain in Elite Adolescent Archery Athletes: A Cross-Sectional Epidemiological Study · Nikolaos Vasilis, Athanasios Kyriakides, George Vasilopoulos, Maria Chatzitimotheou, Grigorios Gonidakis, Athanasios Kotsakis, et al.
Status history
- 2017 Not studied The first and only comparison comes from a Turkish national women's compound championship: the five left-handed archers out of forty-four finish the 72 arrows at 50 metres with a mean of 670.6 points against 561.7 for the right-handers, with p = 0.020, and hold steady between the first and second half of the round. But the hand is the dominant one, measured with a questionnaire, not the shooting hand, the right-handers' means do not add up to their total, and the share of left-handers, 11.4 per cent, is the same as in the general population. Five people, in a journal with questionable editorial standards: the registry reports the study but does not use it to decide the status, which remains not studied.
- 2024 Not studied Two counts arrive that do not measure scores but test the idea from another side: if left-handers shot better, there should be more of them than usual at the top. Among the top fifteen recurve archers in the world, men and women, those who shoot from the left are four out of thirty, 13 per cent; among 200 archers aged 13 to 20 at a European youth championship, 11.5 per cent draw with the left hand. These are the shares found in the general population. They do not overturn the 2017 study, which remains the only direct comparison, but they give it no support, and since they do not measure scores they stay as context: the status remains not studied.
Related
Related articles
Research lines
Cite
Campagna, M. (2026). Left-handed archers shoot higher scores than right-handed archers (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/left-handed-archers-scores
@misc{campagna2026_mancinipunteggio,
author = {Campagna, Matteo},
title = {Left-handed archers shoot higher scores than right-handed archers},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/left-handed-archers-scores},
note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}
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