Kolkata, August 5, 2009
Indian men’s recurve trio of Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Mangal Singh Champia seems to have hit a mild trough in their form in the World Cup archery (Stage IV) which began at Shanghai (China) on Wednesday.
The Indian team for the first time finished third overall in four World Cup meets and the best individual placing was 10th by Jayanta Talukdar with a total of 1324 points in the FITA qualification round.
The trio gave India a total of 3941 points which placed the country third overall behind Korea (4044) and France (3953). By virtue of the third place, India’s first round opponent in the team event will be Ukraine which finished 14th overall.
Rahul Banerjee finished 18th with a total of 1313 and Champia was placed 24th with 1304 points.
Oh Jin Hyek of Korea topped the individual qualifier with 1366 points. Lee Chang Hwan, also of Korea, was second with 1351 and Chen Wenyuan of China was third with 1338.
Talukdar, who is all set to qualify for the four-man World Cup finals at Copenhagen in Denmark on September 26, had qualified to the meet proper by finishing 12th at Santo Domingo, second at Porec and sixth at Antalya in the previous three meets. Banerjee had ended first, seventh and third respectively while Champia had stood second, sixth and 19th in the previous three tournaments' qualifiers.
In the FITA round qualifier at Shanghai’s Yuan Shen Stadium, Talukdar did badly in the 50m event finishing 42nd (321/360) while occupying fourth (315) in the 90m, eighth (333) in the 70m and sixth (355) in the 30m events. His poor show in the 50m event obviously dragged him down to overall 10th.
Banerjee excelled in the 70m occupying fifth position (335) and seventh in the 50m event (334). He, however, did not measure up in the 90m where he was placed 38th (296) and 40th in 30m (348).
Champia, who was the lone male from India to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, has been slipping in each meet. At Antalya he was 19th overall and at Shanghai he went down further in ranking to 24th. He was 36th in 90m (297), 10th in 70m (333), forty-ninth in 50m (319) and eighth in 30m (355). Had form played true, India would have stayed at second spot in the team standings.
The third place finish in the team event meant the Indian team would be drawn at the bottom half of the draw thus avoiding meeting top seed and favourite Korea before the final.
The Indian men's team had won gold medals at the Santo Domingo and Porec World Cup meets and a silver medal at Antalya.
The four Indian women recurve archers, Rimil Buriuly, Dola Banerjee, Pratima Boro and Reena Kumari, will be seen in action on Thursday (August 6). The first three will form the Indian team. Reena will compete only in the individual event.
India is participating only in recurve section.
Source: Press release from Indian Archery Association
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