Fine show by India

KOLKATA, SEPT. 19. The Indian archers did exceedingly well in the individual events of the 41st World outdoor target archery championship on Wednesday at Beijing, according to information reaching here.

National women's champion Dola Banerjee and Satya Dev Prasad became the first Indians to reach the round of 16 in a World meet. Dola, who qualified for the next Olympic Games, made it to the pre-quarterfinals by beating N. Burdeina of Uzbekistan. Dola shot 163 as against her opponent's 159 in the first round. She next came up against N. Valleva of Italy and lost by one point (160-161) looking for a place in the last eight.

The other Indian woman, Chekrovolu Swuro, who made it to the Olympic round where each archer was to shoot six set of three arrows for a total of 18 over a distance of 70m, went down to B. Mensing of Germany by 157 points to 161 in the round of 32. Dola and Chekrovolu moved into the individual competition by occupying 34th and 51st positions respectively. The other two Indian entries, Jhanu Hansdah and debutante Bansaralin Dhar were eliminated when they finished 65th and 78th respectively.

Among the Indian men, Satya Dev Prasad, like Dola, lost in the round of 16 which was indeed a creditable show.

The Meerut-based Gurukul student ousted H. Chen of China in the round of 32. Prasad scored 161 and Chen had a total of 154. Prasad, however, went down to B. Tsyrempilov of Russia in the round of 16 at 157-161.

Kailash Singh, who topped the trials held at Kolkata, was the other Indian to figure in the knockout individual championship.

He was unlucky indeed to lose to Zaborosky of Kazakhstan in the one-arrow each-archer shootout after both were tied at 158 points each in the first round. In the shootout, the Kazakh showed better nerve to score a perfect 10 as against Prasad's 9.

The most experienced Indian archer Lalrem Sanga Changte and Acharya Ved Kumar failed to qualify for the individual event. The Indian men's team too failed to make it.

The only Indian interest left in the championship now was in the team championship where the Indian women's team would take on the second placed team in the round of eight.

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Section  : Sport
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