Archery at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics – Girls' singles The girls' individual archery event at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics was held from 12 to 16 October 2018 at the Parque Sarmiento in Buenos Aires, Argentina. One of three recurve archery events which comprised the archery programme, it was the third time the girls' individual discipline had been contested at Summer Youth Olympics. Thirty-two archers from thirty-two countries entered the competition, which was open to female archers born between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2003. The defending champion was China's Li Jiaman, who was unable to defend her title due to the age limitations imposed on the event. Zhang Mengyao of China won the gold medal, becoming the second female Chinese archer to become Youth Olympic champion. Zhang defeated Spain's Elia Canales by six set points to two in the final, the Spaniard taking home the silver medal as the runner-up. Son Ye-ryeong of South Korea won the bronze medal ahead of Mexico's Valentina Vázquez Cadena. Qualification A total of thirty-two places were available for the event, with each National Olympic Committee (NOC) limited to one entry each. As host nation Argentina automatically qualified its sole entry. A tournament held in parallel with the 2017 World Youth Archery Championships was the primary method of qualification for the remaining thirty-one places, offering sixteen to the sixteen highest-placed athletes in the competition. Eleven places were awarded through five continental youth championships, with the European, Asian, and American championships each offering three spots and those of African and Oceania offering two and one places respectively. The final four positions were available as 'universality places', awarded to NOCs underrepresented at the Olympic Games in line with the universal representation ethos of the Olympic Charter. National selections Each NOC was free to select its representative for the event according to its own criteria, irrespective of the archer who won the position at any one of the qualifying tournaments. Many NOCs nevertheless chose the archers that won the qualifying place. Great Britain announced the selection of Alyssia Tromans-Ansell as part of its national squad in September 2018. Tromans-Ansell, who was coached by four-time Olympian Naomi Folkard and had switched from gymnastics aged 11 after a severe allergic reaction, had won the qualifying tournament held with the World Youth Archery Championships in 2017. 17-year old Himani was likewise chosen by India after her third-placed finish at the qualifying tournament, as was Spain's three-time national cadet champion Èlia Canales, who had finished in ninth. Rebecca Jones, who was inspired to take up archery by The Hunger Games series, was selected for New Zealand's national delegation in August 2018 following her qualification-winning performance at the World Archery Oceania Championships in New Caledonia. Mexico chose 15-year old Valentina Vázquez Cadena for her third international tournament, Vázquez herself inspired to take up archery following the bronze medal victory of Mariana Avitia at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Laura van der Winkel, the winner of the 2018 Dutch national indoor championship at age sixteen, was entered by the Netherlands after she topped a national selection procedure held during the 2018 European Youth Championships. Format The girls' individual recurve event was an outdoor recurve target archery event held according to World Archery-approved rules. From a distance of 60 metres each archer at a 122 cm-wide target, with between one and ten points being awarded for each arrow depending on how close it landed to the centre of the target. The competition took place over two days, an initial ranking round being followed by a single-elimination tournament consisting of five rounds. Two final