News

India confirms teams for 2019 World Championships, World Cup season

19 March 2019

Bhubneshwar, India

Real name:

India’s squad for the ’s-Hertogenbosch 2019 Hyundai World Archery Championships will feature an experienced group of international archers headlined by Atanu Das, Deepika Kumari, Abhishek Verma and Jyothi Surekha Vennam.

“The first target is qualifying for the Olympics through the world championships. If we qualify as men and women teams, we will have three team events and two individual events [in Tokyo], maximising our chances,” said Das according to Sportstar.

Eight recurve men’s teams and eight recurve women’s teams will qualify places for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in ’s-Hertogenbosch, making it a critical event for high-performance archery programmes worldwide.

The trials to select the Indian recurve team took place in Cuttack on 13-15 March, while the compound team trials were held in Bhubneshwar on 16-19 March.

World number five Kumari won the recurve women’s selection event and will be joined at the world championships by Bombayla Devi Laishram and 17-year-old newcomer Komalika Bari.

Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav will represent India’s interests in the recurve men’s competition in ’s-Hertogenbosch.

Fresh off a bronze medal finish at the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final to finish 2018, world number eight Verma was the top finisher in the compound men’s selections. Rajat Chauhan also made the squad – as did Bhagwan Das, who wins his first cap for India.

Vennam, Muskan Kirar and Kaur Raj comprise a young compound women’s team. India’s compound women start 2019 ranked second in the world.

The squad for the 2019 Hyundai World Archery Championships will also travel to the first and third stages of the 2019 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Medellin, Colombia and Antalya, Turkey. They will be joined by reserves Atul Verma, Madhu Vedwan, Aman Saini and Swati Dudhwal.

A second team made up of the archers who finished fourth to eighth in the selections will travel to Shanghai, China for the second stage of the 2019 Hyundai Archery World Cup.