It’s crunch time for two city archers — Vennam Jyothi Surekha and Purvasha Sudhir Shinde — as they are among the top eight archers of the country’s compound segment and they will be part of the selection trials on from which four will be shortlisted for the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.
The Archery Association of India (AAI) has staged four National Ranking Archery Tournaments (NRATs) and picked the top eight arches in both compound and recurve segments. “Four archers will be picked for the Asian Games after two back to back trials in July,” said AP Archery Association administrator Ch. Satyanarayana.
Much to the delight of the local archery administrators, the 15-year-old Purvasha, a trainee from Volga Archery Academy, catapulted herself to the top league by garnering encouraging points to emerge among the top eight. She won the sub-junior and junior titles and later dominated the women segment by winning the third NRAT at Hyderabad.
“Now we have two champion archers from Vijayawada in Jyothi Surekha and Purvasha and both will be vying for berths for Korea,” said Krishna District Sports Development Officer P. Ramakrishna.
Purvasha in her maiden international event at Columbia (World Cup Stage 2) reached the last 16 in women's draw beating Colombian Superstar Sara Lopez 146-144. However, she could not replicate her form in the pre-quarters going down to eventual finalist Toja Cerne of Slovenia. India’s former No. 1 archer Jyothi Surekha, who has been performing consistently, is finding the going tough as she is left with no coach after her fallout with Volga Archery Academy. Surekha is now taking tips from International Isaiah R. Sanam from Hyderabad.
Jyothi Surekha, a find of late Indian coach Ch. Lenin, made her mark in the Indian archery as a precocious talent by winning bagful medals to the country.
