City teenage archer Vennam Jyothi Surekha’s sojourn to Colombia in search of an international medal ended on a disappointing note as she, representing India, bowed out in both individual and team events of the compound section of Archery World Cup Stage III championship held at Medellín city.
Surekha, the first year Mechanical Engineering student of K.L. University, lost to World No.1 Albina Loginova (Russia) in the pre-quarterfinals by 141-145 margin in the individual Olympic round. Earlier, Surekha defeated India’s Manjudha Soy in the tie-breaker.
“In the team championship, Indian women’s team (Trisha Deb, Lily Chanu and Jyothi Surekha) made their exit against the United States of America (USA) in the quarterfinals,” said Krishna District Archery Association secretary Ch. Satyanarayana.
Surekha scored more than 140 points repeatedly (out of 150), but could not match the top world archers. Her highest was 147 out of 150 in the tournament.
“She was consistently scoring 10s and 9s and the least she scored was an eight. She failed to gauge the wind properly during crucial releases. She was training (in Vijayawada) without a coach for a while and that might have hampered her performance,” felt her father Surendra.
Surekha, a disciple of late Indian coach Cherukuri Lenin, is a product of Volga Archery Academy.
“It is getting increasingly difficult for Surekha to train alone as the absence of a quality coach is affecting her morale. I am planning to get a coach soon, may be after October. There is shortage of compound coaches in the country,” Mr. Surendra added.
Surekha will return to SAI Centre at Aurangabad for a three-week camp before leaving for Warsaw (Poland) for the World Stage IV Archery championship from August 19 to 25. She will also take part in the selections from September 5 to 7 to book her berth in the Indian team for the World senior championship at Turkey and World junior championship in China.
