Archery embarks on big-scale talent hunt

The Teer Archery Talent Hunt Programme, a grassroots level talent hunt to find promising archers, will officially get underway tomorrow through Faridpur district.

Twelve districts will carry out this initial phase of a 10-day long talent hunt programme, from which a total of 24 archers will be selected for training for the final phase. Each of those 12 districts will complete their 10-day selections, with Dhaka district wrapping it up on May 16.

Later, those 24 archers will undergo 60 days of training -- 20 days each in three phases -- running from May 22 up to September 4 at the Shaheed Ahsan Ullah Master Stadium in Tongi.

This information was disclosed during a press briefing of the Bangladesh Archery Federation at the Bangladesh Olympic Association auditorium yesterday.

“The speciality of this programme is that it will not only pick promising archers, but also train them before selection for the final phase,” the programme's sponsor City Group executive director Shoeb Mohammad Asaduzzaman said at the press briefing.

The speakers said that each of the 12 districts will have a budget of Tk 375,000 while the training and selection will be conducted under federation's coaches – who hold either Level A, Level B or Level C certificates.

“This is the first year of a five-year programme conducted for archers mostly of the age range between 14 and 16,” BAF general secretary Kazi Razibuddin Ahmed Chapal said. “We are starting with 12 districts, but over the course of five years we will try to cover all the districts.”

The BAF general secretary also said that Bangladesh will host the 2nd ISSF tournament next month while they will try to send a team, if finances allow, to the World Cup Stage 4 in Berlin in July.