NEW DELHI: The compound archery trials to select teams for the three World Cup stages will now be held at the Yamuna Sports Complex (YSC) in New Delhi instead of SAI Sonepat.
The trial scheduled for January 30-31 was shifted as SAI had wanted a fixed number of participants and all of them had to remain in quarantine for a week before the trials could start. That would also have included support staff, coaches and officials. As that would be time-consuming, Delhi was chosen as the venue. SAI had informed Archery Association of India (AAI) that 24 men and the same number of women compound archers would be allowed for the trial but the federation wanted more archers to get a chance, hence this decision was taken.
"YSC has the infrastructure in place and it will not be a problem hosting it there. Almost 40-50 archers can now take part and this will ensure more archers get a chance to make the cut. They have not had any competitions for a year now, so it will be good to reward the deserving archers," a source within the
federation informed.
All archers will have to carry a negative RT-PCR test result not more than 48 hours old after which all vital stats will be monitored on a regular basis. Archers have been informed to find their own accommodation.
A total of 16 men and as many women archers will be selected from the trials and they will directly go and join a camp in SAI Sonepat.
They will be tested and upon finishing quarantine, the camp will start from February 8. A separate selection trial and camp will be held for World Championship later this year.
Most compound archers have not practiced as much as they would have liked but are still happy that they are finally returning to action. "We will find out where we stand after a year out of action. Scores will be low but we cannot complain as finally, we are getting a chance. It has been a long wait, many have not practiced but from now on, we will hopefully start our journey back to competitive action," a top archer said on conditions of anonymity.