Resident Olympic Solidarity athlete from Bangladesh wins Lausanne tournament

Bangladesh’s Md Ruman Shana, a resident athlete at the World Archery Excellence Centre in Lausanne, was awarded the International Olympic Committee President’s prize after winning the recurve men’s event at the 2018 Challenge de Lausanne tournament on 1 July.

Shana scored 679 out of a possible 720 points in the ranking round, the highest competition score shot yet on the Centre’s outdoor field, and didn’t drop a set point through three matches.

He is one of three athletes currently on a programme supported by Olympic Solidarity to live and train at the World Archery Excellence Centre as he attempts to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The others are Areneo David, who became Malawi’s first Olympian archer at Rio 2016, and Mahmoud Elkhalifa of Sudan.

Bangladesh has never qualified an archery place for the Olympic Games but received a men’s tripartite place in 2012 and a women’s invitation in 2016.

If Shana’s rise continues after his victory in Lausanne and three medals – team gold, individual and mixed silver – at the Islamic Solidarity Championships, a world ranking event on home soil in Dhaka in May, the 23-year-old might just be the first.

Shana – who will shoot at stage four of the 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Berlin – Areneo and Mahmoud will stay in Lausanne as long as they remain in the qualification race for Tokyo 2020.