The Hindu : Time for Satyadev to catch-up with Tarundeep

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003

Sport

Sport - Archery

Time for Satyadev to catch-up with Tarundeep

By Our Sports Reporter

AMRITSAR SEPT. 23. Indian archers have a long road to cross if the aspirations of winning an Olympic medal are to be realised. Just the hype wouldn't take them to any pedestal. Consistency is the key, which woefully has been in a short supply.

As the second leg of the National ranking prize money archery tournament opens at the Guru Nanak Stadium here on Wednesday, India's top scorer in the FITA round of the World championship, Satyadev Prasad, will have to get his act together. Otherwise it will be a testing road ahead if this promising archer is to find a berth in the Indian Olympic archery team for the 2004 Athens Games.

Prasad had a sensational score of 1317 at the World championship in New York, and he repeated the same count in the first leg of the National ranking tournament in Kolkata. In the subsequent Olympic round however, Uttar Pradesh's Prasad failed to hold his nerves and lost in the semifinals to Jharkhand's Jayanta Talukdar 2-1 — the last match of the best-of-three games going into the third play-off arrow.

This does not bode well for Prasad. The U.P. archer holds the Indian record for the highest score in the FITA round, which he achieved at the World stage. Discerning contests are always welcome. It essentially reflects on the depth of field available, which is good. But an archer of the calibre as Prasad, should be ever more consistent.

"There is still a long road ahead, but no one should relax for any moment,'' said the Indian coach Soumen Das. "Every point and the placing earned in these ranking tournaments would matter when the team is finally selected to represent the country in the Olympic Games,'' he added.

The men's field has more variety, and so keener contests. "We have seven to eight archers worthy enough to be in the team but we will purely go by the rankings achieved during the series of seven National ranking tournaments as a countdown to the Olympics".

India finished fourth in the men's section and sixth in the women's, in the World championship. The effort secured two men's individual berths, one in the women's event, and team entries in both the sections. So, while there is hardly any challenge to women's National champion Dola Banerjee, it gets tricky in the men's section.

Teen sensation from Sikkim, Tarundeep Rai, chanced on the opportunity to place himself at the top of the rankings despite finishing third after the FITA round with a score of 1312. Prasad (1317) and Majhi Swayan (1315) had led the field.

Besides accumulating all the important points to be able to win a place in the Indian team for the Olympics, Rai is also focusing on the November Asian championship. "If I do well here, and then in the third leg, there will be a chance to participate in the Asian championship (to be held in Yangon, Myanmar),'' said Rai, who is based in Pune's Army Sports Institute (ASI).

Then there is veteran Limba Ram of Rajasthan. Though he is well past his best, he still shot in excess of 1300 in the Kolkata meet. That Limba Ram lost in the quarterfinals to Kailash Sharma of Uttar Pradesh, despite winning the first match, was a different story.

"We are aiming for consistency. Anyone who gets less than 1200 in the FITA round will be sidelined from the National ranking tournaments, whatever may be the placing,'' said Das.

Archery had never been this seriously in the past. That the Archery Association of India (AAI) has got tough is a welcome sign. Since the AAI has been awarding cash prizes to the top finishers, in both men's and women's section, its obligatory for archers to perform well.

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