Rahul Banerjee

Jamshedpur, April 18: Tata Archery Academy’s Rahul Banerjee is on his way to make a mark in the world stage — he has reached the finals of the second edition of the World Cup Archery Championships at Porec, Croatia, and is therefore assured of either a Gold or a Silver medal.

The finals of the tournament, on from April 15, are scheduled for tomorrow.

According to information reaching here from Porec, Rahul was pitched against Park Kyung-Mo of Korea in the semifinal of the recurve division. Both archers started with 26 points after which Park, despite having a good group of arrows, did not fare well and remained at 9-8-8.

Banerjee, shooting excellently, took the lead (54-51) and did not let go. He went on to consolidate his position at 81-79 and then reached a final score of 110-107 to book a berth in the finals.

Another TAA cadet, Jayant Talukdar, was also in the fray. But, he bowed out of the tournament after losing in the quarterfinals.

Banerjee, the younger brother of Dola Banerjee who won Gold in the World Cup 2007, will meet Girouille of France in the finals.

Rahul has been performing consistently in national and international tournaments and his performance in the World Cup — irrespective of whether he goes on to win Gold or not — is another feather in his cap.

While he represented the country in the Junior World Archery Championships in the United Kingdom in 2004 and won a Silver in the team event, he won a team Gold and Bronze in the Olympic round in the Malaysia Grand Prix the same year.

Rahul also won a Silver in the team event of the Asian Archery Championships held in New Delhi in 2005, while he went on to grab a team Gold in the Asian Archery Championships in China in 2007.

He also became national champion by winning Gold in the Olympic round of the 28th Senior National Archery Championship held recently.

Sanjeeva Singh, Tata Steel Sports and TFA chief, who accompanied the Indian team as coach in the first World Cup, said the performance of the top four archers in all the four World Cups were being monitored by the Archery Association of India. “It will have an impact in the selections for the Beijing Olympics,” he added.