Rourkela, April 15: The talent of tribal youths in archery has been tapped at a tournament at the archery training centre in the Biju Patnaik Hockey Stadium here.
The 2nd Tribal Archery Competition, organised by the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) and the Odisha Archery Association, concluded today. It attracted over 111 participants from 23 archery-training units across the state. The 82 boys and 29 girls belonged to various age groups, starting from 14 years of age. They hailed from the eight districts of the KBK region and organisations such as KISS, RSP, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Sports Authority of India (SAI), Sundargarh and the sports hostel in Keonjhar and Kandhamal.
The tournament was based on the Indian model of wooden bow. The Indian bow, with which the beginners start training, is a wooden one but equipped with all facilities and costs over Rs 5,500. "The international standard equipment is too expensive, especially recurve archery sets. One arrow costs Rs 2,000 and the bow I am using is over Rs 2 lakh," said Suna Santa, from SAI HAL Academy in Koraput, who was adjudged the all-round champion. Santa is a national prospect and has attended the national camp. The 17-year old soft-spoken Santa, the youngest in his family took to archery in 2012.
Golap Naik, hailing from SAI Sundargarh, said. "I love the game and have trained very hard ever since I was selected at the training centre," she said.
The RSP Archery Academy, which has come up inside the sprawling hockey academy complex has the right ambience and space for the game. "One can easily organise the national-level tournaments here," said Rajesh Hansda, coach of KISS team.
Veteran international cyclist Minati Mohapatra, an Arjuna awardee, said: "We started the academy with 10 trainees from nearby areas in January this year. Like hockey, I am quite confident that this centre will produce quality archers for the country."
"The first edition of the tournament had been organised at Sunabeda, and this time it is Rourkela," said Sradhanada Das, secretary of the Odisha Archery Association.
"The archers belong to some school or organisation that promotes the sport," Das said.
