Top archers assemble for 2-day trials

The first Meteksan World Cups will be held at Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic (April 1-5) and the second will be held at Porec in Croatia (April 15-19).

The chairman of the technical committee of the Archery Association of India (AAI), Paresh Nath Mukherjee, informed that the competition would be held over a distance of 70m. In all an archer will shoot 288 arrows over the 70m distance over two days.

The first eight archers in the men’s and women’s recurve and compound bow sections as per the standing achieved at the single FITA round of the 28th senior National championship at Jamshedpur (Jan. 28-31) will be in fray.

The group consists of three reigning National champions in Laishram Bombayla Devi (women’s recurve), Rahul Banerjee (men’s recurve) and Namita Yadav (women’s compound). The men’s compound champion, Bijay Rai of Meghalaya, failed to finish in the first eight of the FITA round and hence will not be seen in action.

Mukherjee also said that all the four — Dola Banerjee, Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro in the women’s section and Mangal Singh Champia in the men’s category — who earned India Olympic Quota Places will be retained in the team for the two World Cups regardless of their standing in the two-day trials.

This means the men’s recurve will be restricted to finding only three more entries while the women’s side will look for the fourth member. The compound bow section will identify a full compliment of four archers each.

With the Beijing Olympics scheduled for this August, the AAI is willing to give the four, who earned India berths, the best possible exposure.