Like other archery events at the Olympics, it featured the recurve discipline.

[1] The competition format was completely revamped from prior Games.

Furthermore, all archery was now done at a range of 70 metres whereas previously multiple distances were used.

The top 32 individual archers were seeded into a single-elimination tournament called the "Olympic round".

In all matches, losers were eliminated and received a final rank determined by their score in that round, with the exception of the semifinals.