Jharkhand Archery Association president T. Mukherjee felicitates an archer at Beldih Club. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, July 20: Promising archers from the state, who claimed medals in the second Junior Asian Championship at Chinese Taipei, were felicitated at a ceremony at Beldih Club this evening.

T. Mukherjee, president of the Jharkhand Archery Association who felicitated the winners, spoke highly of archers who donned the national colour during the recently concluded World Archery Championship in Germany.

The association also handed over cash award of Rs 5,000 to each of the individual champions and Rs 2,500 to the medal winners. Coaches were also handed over cash awards. Mukherjee also gave Rs 5,000 to coaches Sanjeeva Singh, Dharmendra Tiwary and Purnima Mahato, besides bows to Dumka Archery Training Centre. Stipend to state coaches — Harendra Singh, B. Srinivas Rao, D. Saiswary, Bijay Prasad, Manish Singh and Rupesh Singh — were also given.

“The 16-member Indian team for last month’s junior Asian meet had 12 archers from Jharkhand,” said Mukherjee, who is also the deputy managing director of Tata Steel.

Namita Yadav and Rajib Basumatary emerged as Junior Asian champions in the men’s and women’s sections, respectively, reflecting Jharkhand’s show in the event. The list of medal winners from the state also included names of Prabhat Kandir and Rajib Basumatary and V. Pranitha, Rosie Lalrem, Nisha Rani Dutta, Reshma Banerjee who picked up silver in the team event of recurve division.

Mukherjee lauded the national women’s recurve team for qualifying for next year’s Olympic games at Beijing. Archers Mangal Ho and Rimil Biruly performed well in the recently held selection trials of the Indian cadet team in May.

The chief added Ho and Biruly have been handed over modern bows so they can improve upon their score for the forthcoming Junior World and Cadet Archery Championship. Association secretary, Sanjeeva Singh, said they have lined up tournaments to provide exposure to the archers.