The Hindu : Sport / Archery : India confident of a good show

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 06, 2005

Sport

Sport - Archery

India confident of a good show

Kirti Patil

NEW DELHI: Host India has high hopes, as the 14th Asian archery championship gets underway at the Nehru Stadium here on Sunday.

Indian men have clinched the World championship silver this year in Madrid and Tarundeep Rai, the most consistent among the latest crop of archers, finished a commendable fourth in a field of 143. The women too have not been far behind with Dola Banerjee leading the pack to a fourth- place finish in the team championship.

In both the men's and women's section, Olympic champion Korea won the World championship and it has come here with almost the same set of archers to participate in the largest-ever Asian championship. New Delhi has readied itself to host 20 nations including archrivals Iran and Iraq.

Tarundeep confident

``A team medal is within our grasp for sure. I am looking for an individual medal to start with,'' said the Indian ace Tarundeep Rai. The confidence with which Tarundeep speaks is a result of hard work and hours of practice, backed with a series of prize money tournaments around the year.

In Madrid, India lost to Korea in the men's team final by a mere 12 points.

In New Delhi, though the setting may be different, the field is as good as it could be as all the best teams except Italy, Ukraine and Russia are here. Korea's Kyung Mo Park, the World and Olympic champion, should be a runaway winner but Tarundeep can aim for an individual silver medal ahead of Japan's Olympic silver medallist Hiroshi Yamamoto.

In Madrid, Rai, who posted a score of 1349, had left Yamamoto way behind.

Besides Korea and Japan, Chinese Taipei and China are the other strong teams who could be in contention for the medals.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport