Sport - Archery

Indian team optimistic ahead of World meet

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: With Beijing Olympics qualification uppermost in their minds, the Indian archery team for the World championships looked confident of grabbing a few quota places on the eve of its departure for Leipzig, Germany, on Wednesday.

The World Championships will be held in Leipzig from July 7 to 15 and the top 48 men and women from this meet will qualify for the Beijing Olympics. Sixteen more berths will be filled up through continental qualification and wild cards.

Coach-cum-manager of the team, international Sanjeeva Singh, expressed confidence that at least two men and two women would come through these championships in the top 48 to be eligible for next year’s Olympics.

After that, India will have another chance in the Asia Cup competition to be held in China in August when one more archer, in each section, could make it to the Olympics.

The Archery Association of India (AAI) President, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who held a send-off function for the team, said that the team would compete in the World Cup meet at Dover, Britain, from July 31 to August 5 and also participate in a triangular event to be held at the Lord’s cricket ground on August 6. Korean coach Chea Woong Lim is back in charge of the team after a gap and according to Mr. Malhotra he was likely to be retained till the end of Beijing Games.

The team: Men: Recurve: Tarundeep Rai, Rahul Banerjee and Somai Murmu; Compound: Jayantilal Nanoma, C.H. Lenin and Chungda Sherpa.