Colorado Springs, CO - USA Archery has been named by World Archery, the sport's international federation, as "the best nation in archery since 2008," contradictory to the traditional wisdom that the sport is dominated by Korea and other nations.

In pulling together its research, World Archery took "into account all the results in major archery events since 2008," and the United States tops this ranking ahead of front-runners Korea, Italy and India. "World Archery took up the challenge to measure something really concrete," they explain on their website at http://www.worldarchery.org.

"We measured the results at all the major events in outdoor archery during the current Olympic cycle. The results across all categories: recurve and compound, men and women, individuals, teams and mixed teams."

In compiling results, performances at five different types of event were taken into account: World Outdoor Target Championships and Olympic Games; World Cup events; Other Events A (average ranking factor for the individual World Ranking higher than 2.00); Other Events B (average ranking factor between 1.00 and 2.00) and Other Events C (average ranking factor lower than 1.00). Tournaments considered as "Other Events" included Continental Championships, multisport Games and other world-class competitions.

"For instance," notes World Archery in its summary, "an individual gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games gives 20 points, and a team one, 25 points. The same at a World Cup stage brings respectively 19 and 23 points. An individual 33rd place at a World Cup gives 1 point. Finally, an individual 1st place at the "Other events C" gives 9 points and a 9th place, 1 point."

World Archery's statistician took into account thirty different events, starting with the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and including the most recent World Cup Stage, held in April in Shanghai - an event at which Team USA scored seven medals. The U.S. amassed a total of 2978 points, compared to Korea at 2316, and Italy at 1895. Over 100 countries scored at least one point to appear in the ranking.

"We're grateful to World Archery for taking the time to compile this ranking, and it's extremely gratifying to see Team USA athletes performing at this level," commented Denise Parker, USA Archery CEO. "Under Coach Lee's direction, U.S. archers have made amazing progress, and we look forward to the rest of the 2012 season and beyond."