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Berth-winner Mangal faces trials for Rio
NEW DELHI: Archers Mangal Singh Champia, Jayanta Talukdar and Atanu Das will fight it out for the lone individual berth for the Rio Olympics. The trials will be
NEW DELHI: Archers Mangal Singh Champia, Jayanta Talukdar and Atanu Das will fight it out for the lone individual berth for the Rio Olympics. The trials will be held in Bengaluru on Saturday.
Mangal Singh had won the individual quota at the World Championship in July, but the Archery Association of India (AAI) is going ahead with fresh selection trials, and this might snowball into a controversy.
The AAI plans to allot additional points based on the archers’ performance this year, for the World Cups in Shanghai, Medellin and Antalya.
Das has an advantage over the others as he’s performed better in the World Cups and the six trials held to prune the squad from 12 to three. Mangal Singh’s contention is that when trials are being held, points shouldn’t be taken into account.
“I will be at a disadvantage because I have no bonus points. I’m not even getting the advantage of winning the Olympic quota place,” he told HT.
AAI secretary-general Anil Kamineni said the federation had announced its selection policy for the Olympics in December. “Our aim is to send the best, that’s why we are conducting trials,” he said.
He said the selection procedure for the Olympics started in January. Reacting to speculations that Das would benefit from the bonus points, Kamineni said, “All the archers were aware of the policy.”
The federation had said individual trials would be held only if the men’s team failed to qualify for Rio. And the need to conduct fresh trials arose when Mangal Singh, Talukdar and Das failed to win the team berth at the just-concluded World Cup at Antalya, Turkey, which was the last Rio qualification event.
The women’s recurve team has qualified by virtue of its performance at last year’s World Championships in Copenhagen.
