India’s top archers will be in action as the sixth phase of selection trials for the Rio Olympics begins at the Sports Authority of India here on Friday.
The women’s recurve trio of Deepika Kumari, Rimil Buriuly, and Laxmirani Majhi, who earned India three quota places at the World Championships in Copenhagen last year, will be joined by Bombayla Devi. On the men’s side, Mangal Singh Champia, who has earned one quota place, will try out alongside Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee, and Atanu Das.
The eight are part of the Senior recurve men’s and women’s camp, which commenced here on May 3. The trials will be conducted over three days, and will conclude on Sunday.
The Olympic camp will be pruned to three women and three men at the end of the trials process. This group of six is scheduled to leave for Turkey to take part in the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya from June 13 to 19.
In case the men’s team does not qualify for the Olympics, only one male archer will be selected from the three, for which a seventh trial will be conducted. A makeshift archery range has been set up on the SAI campus here, with a platform erected for the archers to shoot from.
“They brought us drawings of the Olympic venue in Rio. They wanted us to create a similar setup here, so we built a platform,” said M. Shyam Sunder, Regional Director.
