The Hindu : Indians eye European Grand Prix

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 22, 2004

Sport

Sport - Archery

Indians eye European Grand Prix

By Our Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI, FEB. 21. After the high of beating World champion Korea in the individual Olympic round at the Asian Grand Prix in Bangkok, the Indian archers are aiming at the European events to tune themselves for the coming Olympic Games.

Italy, Germany and Turkey have been identified as the destinations for the Indian archery team in the run-up to the Olympics in Athens. "These European Grand Prix's will provide the stage for our team to know where they stand as they would be competing with the world's top archers,'' National coach C. K. Das said on return from Bangkok.

The eight-member team rode on the splendid performance by Tarundeep Rai as he won for India an individual gold medal for the first time. Beating the likes of the Korean archers, Rai proved that he has arrived and was ready to make some dent during the Olympic archery competition. In the team events, India won a silver and bronze medal each in the men and women's sections.

"The performance in Bangkok is a real boost. Hence we have decided to send our team to three European Grand Prix events, the last being in Turkey in July where archers from around the world would converge,'' said the President of Archery Association of India (AAI), Vijay Kumar Malhotra.

"There is no doubt that we now have a much stronger team than ever in the past. The scores some of the archers are achieving are World class,'' he added.

India qualified for Olympics, in both men and women's section, after a creditable show in the World championship in the US last year. The men finished fourth while the women were placed sixth.

In Bangkok, Rai defeated Korean Lee Seung Yong 110-107 in the final to clinch the gold medal. In the semifinals, he faced teammate Satyadev Prasad and after the two tied at 110-110, Rai sneaked into the final on a better tie-break score (9-8).

In the men's 70-metre team event, India won the silver aggregating 1,987 points. Korea (2,023) took the top position while Japan (1,914) was third. In the Olympic round though it had to settle for the third position.

In the women's section, India with 1,915 points trailed Korea by 91 points, while Malaysia was third at 1,875.

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