NEW DELHI: The Archery Association of India (AAI) on Thursday painted a rosy picture of the sports and pleaded for greater recognition for archers who have earned glory in the past six months.
In an interaction with the media, the AAI president Prof. Vijay Kumar Malhotra lavished praise on the young archers. Archers deserved to be in limelight, he said even as he pointed out their achievements of the recent past.
The first half of this year, Malhotra noted, was the most successful phase for Indian archery in terms of achievements.The men’s team of Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Mangal Singh Champia has climbed four places to be ranked second behind Korea in the latest FITA rankings.
Talukdar, as Malhotra said, was now ranked No. 1 archer of the World Cup. He also added that the Recurve men’s team had not lost a single match up to the final in any of the World Cup competitions this year.
In keeping with their form if the first stage of the World Cup at Santo Domingo where the team clinched the gold from England, the trio of Talukdar, Banerjee and Champia won against the Russian team in the final of 2nd stage of the World Cup at Porec to earn the second gold team gold medal in two consecutive World Cups.
He rated “great” the feat by Deepika Kumari, who became the second Indian archer to win a Youth World championship title by winning the gold in the girls’ cadet recurve category.
In a first of its kind, the India gate lawns have been identified for conducting the finals of the archery event during the Commonwealth games next year. The preceding contests would be held at the Yamuna Sports Complex and the finals at India Gate to create awareness of archery among the common man.
CG criticised
He took a dig at the Commonwealth Games by saying, spending huge amount of money on flyovers and roads would not bring us medals. “You need infrastructure for them to win medals. You need to give them facilities. Unfortunately, there won’t be any home ground benefit at all for our sportsmen for the Commonwealth Games. Had the stadium been ready two years ago, as is the norm, they would have trained properly and done better at the Games.”
Malhotra also urged the government to provide sportspersons with pocket money when they travel overseas.
Efforts, stated Malhotra, had been made through the Trainers Training Programmes to help the coaches fraternity in the country. “Four Indian coaches were sent to Korea in October last year for specialised training for a month,” said Malhotra. According to Malhotra, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the AAI and Ministry of tribal Affairs for conducting the five state-level and one National level competitions. The AAI would also receive a sponsorship of Rs. 80 lakh from Sahara India.
The AAI has proposed to stage two international competitions in order to sustain the good work done by the archers.
The fourth Asian Grand Prix archery championship would be held at Kolkata from September 16 to 19 and an international Invitational Test Event will be held at the Yamuna Sports Complex here in March next year.