Top archers of the country, barring a few, are expected to provide exciting action at the iconic Tata Archery Academy here from Saturday as the 40th National archery championships returns after a pandemic-induced break.
The National championships was last held at Cuttack in 2019.
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The Archery Association of India (AAI) has noticed a lot of enthusiasm on the return of the elite domestic event.
The federation has received maximum number of entries — over 950 from 40 units — for this edition.
Several top archers, who competed in the recently-concluded World archery championships and World Cup Final in Yankton, USA, will take part in the event.
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Olympians Atanu Das, Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav will be seen in action in the recurve events.
Triple Worlds silver medallist V. Jyothi Surekha and Abhishek Verma will be among the star compound archers who will be taking part. The top 16 archers in recurve men and women and compound men and women categories will be picked from this championship for the selection trials to be held on October 10 and 11 here for the Asian archery championship in Dhaka next month.
A few archers, including Sangampreet Bisla, Ridhi and Aditya Chaudhary, who competed in the World championships and missed out on the selection process of their respective State units for the National championships will also get a chance to take part in the trials, said an AAI source.
The championships will also showcase some promising archers who shone at the elite and youth World championships.
The National championships will begin with the Indian (bamboo) bow competitions on October 2 and 3, followed by compound events on October 5 and 6 and recurve events on October 8 and 9.