The Hindu : Sport : Younger archers to the fore

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Tuesday, Jun 24, 2008
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Younger archers to the fore

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: Veterans Dola Banerjee, Reena Kumari and Chekrovolu Swuro will be up against younger brigade, comprising Punya Prabha, Sushma, V. Pranitha, Pratima Boro and Rimil Biruly, for two places in the women’s Olympic archery team to be named at the end of four-day trials on June 29.

Recent performance of Dola Banerjee, the Dover and Dubai World Cup gold medallist and Reena Kumari, both from Railways, has compelled the Archery Association of India (AAI) to call for the final trials on June 25, 26, 28 and 29 at the SAI Eastern Centre.

Bombayla Devi retained

The third member, Laishram Bombayla Devi, performed much better at the third World Cup at Antalya and was rewarded. She was retained in the Olympic team and sent to Korea for advanced training along with men’s lone qualifier Mangal Singh Champia.

While it is a bad news from Dola and Reena, Chekrovolu, who finished sixth in the last trials and lost her place to Reena in the originally selected team, gets another chance to regain her berth. Punya Prabha, who has failed narrowly to qualify on two previous occasions, will be happy to get another shot.

Each will shoot a total of 144 arrows over a distance of 70m each day for a total of 576. The top two will join Bombayla in the team.

Consequent to the decision, only the men’s recurve team has been sent to participate in the fourth Meteksan World Cup at Boe in France beginning on Tuesday. The event will see two of the four Indians, Rahul Banerjee and Jayanta Talukdar, in line for a place in the World Cup final at Lausanne (Switzerland) in September this year.

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