Women archers ensure silver for Bangladesh

Following a string of failures at the 5th Islamic Solidarity Games, the Bangladesh women archers ensured at least a silver medal for their country by finishing second in the compound team event's qualification round in Konya on Monday.

Roksana Akter, Shamoli Roy, Puspita Jaman finished fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively, out of 10 competitors to tally 2034 points altogether for Bangladesh, who stood 34 points behind hosts Turkiye. Archers from Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia and Yemen also took part in the qualification round but they could not form a team due to shortage of players, leaving Bangladesh and Turkiya to play the final match on Wednesday.

Roksana and Shamoli, thus, moved into the quarterfinals in women's compound individual events, while Puspita is set to play pre-quarterfinal match against Nur Aina Yasmine of Malaysia tomorrow.

In recurve men's individual events, Hakim Ahmed Rubel, Ruman Sana and Sagor Islam stood 10th, 11th and 16th, respectively, among 49 archers in the qualification round. Consequently, Rubel and Ruman moved into the pre-quarterfinals after getting bye in the first-round match, while Sagar comprehensively beat Khalid Rashid of Sudan 6-0 to move into the pre-quarterfinals as well.

In the recurve men's team event, Bangladesh -- comprising Rubel, Ruman and Sagor -- finished fifth to set their first match against 12th-placed Sudan, with Turkiya, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Iran having secured the top four positions.