The Hindu : Sport / Archery : Dola in last eight

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 16, 2004

Sport

Sport - Archery

Dola in last eight

KOLKATA, JULY 15. Months of hard work put in by the Indian archers began to pay off as the men's team, comprising Satyadev Prasad, Tarundeep Rai and Majhi Sawaiyan, took the top spot in the 72-arrow qualification round of the XVII Golden Arrow Grand Prix meet at Antalya in Turkey. The Indian trio totalled 1945 points to be ahead of Russia (1944) and Ukraine (1929).

Despite the absence of archery superpowers, Korea, China and Chinese Taipei and most of the top European nations not sending their best, it was the turn of the lesser-known countries to hit the limelight. Among them, India did well in grabbing all the attention with Satyadev Prasad standing third in the overall individual ranking with a score of 657 behind the top finisher Baljinima Tsyrempilov of Russia (663) and Viktor Ruban of Ukraine (661). Rai was seventh with 651 and Sawaiyan was 22nd with 637, according to information reaching here.

The day's other good news was that India's best bet in the distaff side, Dola Banerjee moved into the quarterfinals of the individual elimination round with three fluent victories. She defeated Lilliana Torres of Venezuela 162-145 and followed it up by beating home country's Zekiye Satir 164-160 to advance into the pre-quarterfinals. Dola ousted Greece's Evangelia Psarra at 162-157 and would take on top seed Tetyana Berezhna of Ukraine for a place in the semifinals.

The other two Indian women did not have it good. Sumangla did manage to move into the round of 16 where she lost to Russian Margarita Galinovskaya at 153-167. In the first two rounds, she eliminated Firuza Zubayadova of Tajikistan at 156-150 and ousted Natalia Bolotova of Russia at 159-154. Reena Kumari too exited in the round of 32 after beating Sut Txi Mon Redee of Malaysia at 160-159. She lost to Kristina Esebua of Georgia in the one-arrow tie-break after finishing equal at 156-156. Kristina shot a 10 while Reena could manage a 9. — Our Special Correspondent

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