E-Paper
Indian archers take aim for global online series
The inaugural online competition, forced by the pandemic, will be held over four phases with the finals to be staged in February.
The Archery Association of India (AAI) plans to field top archers for the inaugural edition of the Indoor Archery World Series, the first online event, starting on November 21.
The series, under the aegis of World Archery, will run till February and keep the archers in competitive mode in the time of pandemic, says AAI secretary general Pramod Chandurkar. “We have sent details to the respective state associations to shortlist archers and forward the names,” he added.
The second leg will be held in December, the third in January and the final competition in February. Chandurkar is confident the online series will be a good platform for the archers to stay focused with the global calendar disrupted due to the pandemic.
The world governing body rules allow each national federation 100 entries for the series, which will be organised in six categories across recurve, the Olympic discipline, and compound. “In case the response is good we will shortlist archers by ranking,” he said.
Archers will shoot 60 arrows at 18 metres—the Olympic competition is over 70m while it is 18m or 25m indoors—and can submit scores through a mobile app. The best three scores will be counted for final ranking at the end of the series in February. The finals are slated on February 27-28.
AAI is also holding open selection trials from November 23-27 in Jamshedpur to give a fresh opportunity for the country’s second rung of archers.
Forty male archers with a minimum score of 650 points out of a possible 720 have been shortlisted for the trials. Only 18 are eligible in women where the cut-off is 630 points. “Those who could not make the core group in the last trials in January before the nationwide lockdown will have another chance to make the cut for the national team,” Chandurkar said.
Four top archers in men’s and women’s groups from the Jamshedpur trials will join the top 16 at the pre-Olympic camp now on at Pune’s Army Sports Institute campus.
World Archery has announced a tentative 2021 Olympic qualifying calendar. The first World Cup is scheduled in Guatemala City from April 19-25 and the second in Shanghai from May 17-21. Paris will stage the final Olympic qualifying event in June.
“After internal assessment, the list will be pruned to eight by February. Depending on the situation, the teams will be shortlisted for the World Cups.”
