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Under-fire Archery boss defends camp
Following the Indian women recurve team’s dismal show in the archery World Championships in Ulsan, South Korea, tongues have started wagging. Nilankur Das reports.
Following the Indian women recurve team’s dismal show in the archery World Championships in Ulsan, South Korea, tongues have started wagging. Questions have been raised why no woman coach accompanied the team and the justification for continuing with the SAI Eastern Centre as the venue for national camps.
The women’s trio of Rimil Buriuly, Dola Banerjee and Pratima Boro failed to qualify in the team event and the men’s team of Mangal Singh Champia, Jayanta Talukdar and Rahul Banerjee, after finishing third in the qualifying FITA round, was seventh in the elimination. Among individuals, Champia lasted till the last-eight, losing to Korea’s Lee Chang-Huwan.
“After the construction of the swimming pool beside the archery field, the wind that used to blow across the field has been restricted. So, archers here are vir tually training in windless conditions. Now the slightest wind breaks their rhythm,” a SAI official told HT.
“I also feel that continuing the national camp at one particular centre becomes monotonous. The same ground, the same conditions, affect performance. If it is rotated, archers get to test themselves in varied conditions.”
To this Archery Association of India general secretary Pareshnath Mukherjee said: “Someone who has said that archers have been training in windless conditions and that was why they performed badly does not know what he is talking about. If that was true, how do you justify the men’s team performance in the FITA round? This is only for the second time that our men’s team has crossed 4000 points in the qualifying round.”
The women’s team was rather depleted as L. Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro are undergoing training in South Korea for the Commonwealth Games. Mukherjee said since coach Dharmendra Tripathi is close to the women archers who went, no woman coach was sent.
