Purpose: To investigate the relationship between aiming time and archery performance in elite archers, and to compare the difference in aiming time between high score and low score. Methods: Four elite archers (age, 19.3 ± 1.9 yrs; height, 174.5 ± 4.6 cm; weight, 72.5 ± 5.2 kg), attended the Federation of International Target Archery (FITA) round, were recruited in this study. Each archer shot 144 arrows, and total samples of 576 arrows were used for further analyses. A camera was set at the right side in front of elite archer for recording the motion from anchor to release, and the score of each arrow was recorded by the researcher. The Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine the relationship between aiming time and archery performance. Qualification round was arranged according to the rule of FITA. All archer's shooting scores were divided into two groups with high score (9-10x) and low score (5-8), and comparisons between high score and low score were made using Student's paired t-test. Results: The average aiming time of elite archers was 4.11 ± 1.79 seconds, and the aiming time was negatively correlated with archery score (r = -0.11, P ＜ 0.05). However, the aiming time between high and low score group was not significantly different (high score group vs. low score group: 4.03 ± 0.95 seconds vs. 4.44 ± 1.17 seconds, p＞ 0.05). Conclusion: Although a small correlation between aiming time and archery performance at FITA round was found in elite archers, the aiming time may slightly influence archery performance. Further research on the effect of aiming time on the archery performance is necessary.
