The Athens Olympic Games-bound Indian archery team in the city on Monday

Calcutta: Drawing inspiration from a second-place finish in the world junior archery championships, the Indian contingent for the Athens Olympics is hoping to win a medal in the team event. The non-playing captain of the Indian team, Pareshnath Mukherjee, said that they have a 50-50 chance of winning a medal in the mega show.

“Most countries could not represent themselves in the team events since they don’t have a good number of quality archers. Hence, we are hoping to do well in that category,” Mukherjee said at a press conference at the Calcutta Sports Journalists’ Club (CSJC) on Tuesday.

The men’s team consists of Satyadev Prasad, Tarundeep Rai and Majhi Sawaiyan while the women’s outfit comprises Dola Banerjee, Reena Kumari and Sumangala.

Mukherjee maintained that it is a great achievement that India have booked berths in both the men’s and women’s sections by virtue of superb show in the world championships in the United States in July, 2003.

“In fact, other than India, only Korea and Ukraine have qualified in the team events from the world meet,” Mukherjee said. “That we would be able to participate in both sections of the team events, was beyond our expectation,” he added.

“After our below-par show in the last Asian Games, we deviated from our plans of conducting marathon coaching camps and instead laid total stress on participation in international meets,” he said.

While considering Korea as the number one team in both categories of team events, Mukherjee opined that India were at par with China and Ukraine in the men’s competition along with few other countries from Europe, like Sweden and Germany.

Top India archer Dola Banerjee, who will spearhead the Indian women’s challenge, said that she is now in a much better shape than she was a year back. “I have been doing well of late and so there’s no reason why I won’t be able to produce my best in the Athens Games,” Dola said.

According to Dola, after the induction of a psychologist for the Indian archers, their mental strength increased a lot, which helped them perform well in the international meets.

Dola, ranked 21st in the world among women, said that the dismal show in the Asian Games would not affect their performance in Athens. “Following the Asian Games disaster, we have done our training in a better manner and also tried to work on the mistakes we have committed in the Busan meet,” she said.

The Bulgarian coach Ivan Yotov, who is here on a six-month contract, also pinned his hopes on Dola. “All the archers are good but Dola is really the best among the lot,” Yotov said.