Aiming high

Jamshedpur, April 13: Jharkhand can hope to walk home with a bag full of medals in the upcoming Senior Championship Archery Championship in Guwahati with the state association looking to “borrow” several top bracket archers.

Jharkhand Archery Association (JAA) has already initiated talks with Steel Plant Sports Board (SPSB) to field some of their better archers _ Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerji, Deepika Kumari, Rimil Biruly, Pawan Xalco, Atanu Das, Seema Verma and Lakshmi Rani Murmu _ to strengthen the state’s medal prospects at the April 23-27 nationals.

Barring Jayanta, Rahul and Lakshmi, who are with Tata Steel, others are from of Tata Archery Academy (TAA). These archers, who have been representing the board in nationals, will now be lining up for the April 18 selection trials to be conducted by the association at JRD Tata Sports Complex.

Confirming the move, association working secretary L.Murty said there was nothing wrong in the state availing the services of the board’s archers. “Their presence will bolster our medal hopes at the national event,” he said.

The board’s archers, all internationals, will compete in the recurve division. The association will be sending a 16-member squad of men and women for the nationals.

“We don't have any objection if our archers play for Jharkhand. It will benefit the archers as winning medals in the nationals would help them get cash rewards from the state government. It will also help junior archers from SAIL's academy in Kiriburu to get slots in the senior board outfit,” an official said, adding it was for the first time they had allowed their archers to don Jharkhand jerseys.

The board, an affiliated unit of the Archery Association of India (AAI), had been sending teams for nationals. Its archers compete in the recurve division.

The association’s decision to field board archers is likely to help Jharkhand which hasn’t been faring well in the senior nationals. But as expected, the move will cost some talented archers who may not make it to the state squad since most of the slots in men’s and women’s recurve division would be filled by board archers.

“Balancing things will be difficult as we want to form a strong outfit for the nationals,” admitted officials.