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Archers practise at JRD Tata Sports Complex on Wednesday. Picture by Bhola Prasad
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The mini national title in pocket, archers from Jharkhand have now turned their attention towards the 33rd Sub-junior National Championship that is scheduled to be held in Bangalore from January 15 to 20.
The state, which barely missed out on clinching the title last year faltering to Andhra Pradesh in the final, is looking to put its best show and make amends this time around.
The Jharkhand Archery Association on Wednesday came out with 24 names (both boys and girls) who would be participating in the Bangalore-based national event in the Indian, recurve and compound rounds.
The team, which has as many as eight players from Silli — Jharkhand’s new breeding ground for budding archers — will leave for the Karnataka capital on January 13.
“All the archers in the squad have earned a place for themselves on the basis of their performance at the 10th state archery championship that was held in Bokaro from December 12 to 15. We are sending a strong unit and expect to come out with good results during the Bangalore tournament,” working secretary of the state archery association L. Murty said.
He added that they had pinned their hopes of a top finish this year as Jharkhand had barely missed out on the trophy during the 2012 event.
“Some of our archers missed their target by less than a whisker. Otherwise we would have emerged as champions in the last national sub-junior event also. This time we are better prepared and the archers are pumped up and ready to face the Bangalore challenge,” Murty said.
The working secretary also credited an archery training centre, which had come up in Silli, for helping the rookie players sharpen their aim and prepare for big-ticket events.
“Silli has a satisfactory training system and apparatus in place with a lot of experienced coaches around to help the players. This has overall helped bring about a positive bearing on the performance of the rookie archers. We hope more such training centres come up in other Jharkhand Archery Association affiliated districts soon,” Murty said.
According to the list released, the boys who made the cut in the recurve category are M. Prasanna (Tata Archery Academy), Kamal Kishore (Dumka), Akash Naik and Gurucharan Kumar (both SAI Academy, Kiriburu).
Those named in the compound division were Shahenshah Biruly, Bhutan Swansi, Prakash Hembrom (all Seraikela-Kharsawan) and Mohan Kumar Sahu (Silli).
Chitaranjan Jamuda, Shivkumar Kumbhkar (Seraikela-Kharsawan), Mukesh Turi (Silli) and Motu Soren (Ranchi) will display the their skills in the Indian round.
The girls who would line up to shoot in the recurve category were Ajanti Kumari, Reena Kumari (both Silli), Jyoti Purty (Tata Archery Academy) and Archana Kumari (SAIL Academy, Kiriburu).
Durgawati Kumari, Madhumita Kumari, Rajni Patro and Anu Tiwary (all Silli) have been named to compete in the compound division, with Simpy Kumari, Anita Kumari, (both Silli), Indrani Kujur (Lohardaga) and Sangita Muru (Dhanbad) representing the state in the Indian round. B.S. Rao and Prakash Ram will company the team as coaches.
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