NEW DELHI: THE next month is going to be quite crucial for Indian archers. First up, the World Cup stage III in Antalya, Turkey for which sixteen archers (eight recurve and eight compound) are set to leave the country early on Saturday. Next up, the World Championships in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands from June 10.
While the World Championships is for both recurve and compound, the Archery Association of India have planned to hold a ten-day camp at a local club for only the selected recurve athletes as the tournament will also serve as a qualifying event for the 2020 Olympics. This was planned by the previous administration of AAI.
“We are sending the recurve athletes as early as possible for them to acclimatise to the conditions. They will receive Indian food and homely conditions and it will help them in their preparations,” an AAI official said. “As the qualifying event for Tokyo is only for recurve, we felt it would be wise to send recurve archers,” he added. The archers will be joined by two coaches, manager, physio and masseuse.
Compound has outshone recurve in the last couple of years. Apart from Deepika Kumari, recurve archers have failed to even reach the quarterfinal stages while those from compound won medals in all four stages of the World Cup and World Cup Finals last year. They topped it off by claiming silver medals in the Asian Games as well. Olympic qualification is important but winning a Worlds medal should not be taken lightly either.
“It is sad that compound archers do not get the requisite importance despite better results. They should be encouraged as much as recurve, if not more, as they have been doing consistently well,” an international archer said.
Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram and 17-year-old newcomer Komalika Bari make up the recurve women’s team for the Worlds while Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav are part of the men’s team.