India eyes elusive Worlds medal at Dubai 2022 Para Archery Championships
India eyes elusive Worlds medal at Dubai 2022 Para Archery Championships
Dubai: Country’s top para-archers including Tokyo 2020 Paralympic bronze medallist Harvinder Singh are returning to action here this week at the Dubai 2022 World Archery Para Championships that kicked off with the qualification rounds on Tuesday.
The nine-member Indian team are in Dubai after a two-month training camp at the Sports Authority of India Regional Centre in Sonipat and are confident of their best show ever at a World Championships. Before this, India has sent its teams to two World Championships – Beijing 2017 and s-Hertogenbosch 2019 with Paralympian archer Rakesh Kumar coming close to winning the bronze medal in the Netherlands.
‘Not thinking about medal’
Harvinder, the archer who turned his farm in Ajitnagar, Punjab, into a target practice venue before winning the historic Paralympic bronze for India, looked focused on getting his job done - shooting a perfect score and returning home with the elusive medal.
“Like every other player here, I will be very happy to go back home with a medal. But right now, I am not thinking about this. The target is to shoot well this week. The result will follow.
“There’s a lot of excitement within the team as this is the first event after the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. This Championship is also very important in terms of analysing our game and knowing where we stand right now. As this is the start of the season, the event will also give a direction to our plans ahead,” said Harvinder, who finished 7th and 9th positions in the last two Worlds.
“Mentally I am very confident going into the event. But I don’t want to be overconfident or be under pressure by setting any target in the championships. I want to just focus on shooting a good score. That’s what I did at the Paralympics and Asian Para Games also. I want to follow the same strategy – stay calm, focused and shoot well,” added the recurve men’s open archer who celebrates his 31st birthday in three days.
National coach Kuldeep Kumar claimed the team is the country's best bet for a medal at major championships.
“And we are eyeing the elusive World medal, the gold, this time. There’s a lot of expectation from the archers; it’s a very balanced team. We have Paralympic and Asian Para Games medallists, and World Ranking tournament medallists. The team has worked very hard for the last few months in all aspects of their game,” said the coach from Jammu and Kashmir.
He also shared that the focus was on a lot of things during training including one on one shooting drills, mental aspect, recovery and diet etc.
After Harvinder’s bronze medal in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and gold in Indonesia 2018 Asian Para Games, India has won a medal in almost every single event since 2017 except the World Championships.
National coach Anil Joshi added: “We have high medal expectations in every category. During the training, the archers have shown a lot of promise even shooting scores of the world champions.”
Compound archers open campaigns
On Tuesday, compound open archers including Paralympians Rakesh Kumar, Shyam Sundar Swami and Jyoti Baliyan, opened their campaign on the day.
Shyam Sundar, who ended in top 5 in the qualification round, said he felt confident after the second 36 set of arrows. “I had that feeling that I could go for the gold. There was a lot of wind today but we have trained shooting in all conditions. I am confident of getting that Worlds medal here.”
Baliyan was happy to return to her happy hunting ground where she had won many medals at the Fazza World Ranking Championships in the past few years.
“I am excited to be back in the shooting line. I am looking forward to the Elimination round. I always have had good results in Dubai. And I hope to go home with my first World Championship medal from here,” said Jyoti who was placed 11th at the qualification rounds.
The Dubai 2022 is the first championships where the two-archer doubles format rather than three-archer teams for single-gender competitions will be introduced. and the Indian players, like many others, were excited about the development.
As many as 223 archers from 40 countries are competing at the Dubai 2022 Championships this week, where 16 world titles are up for grabs.
Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed opens the Championships
On Monday night, His Highness Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Sports Council, opened the Dubai 2022 Championships at a spectacular ceremony.
Among others gracing the occasion were Chairman of the Higher Organising Committee of the Championships Thani Juma Berregard; Majid Rashed, Director of the Championships and Tom Dielen, Secretary-General of World Archery among others.
