Archers leave for Thailand tomorrow
A 19-member Bangladesh contingent, including 15 archers, will leave for Thailand tomorrow to take part in the 21st Asian Archery Championship, which will be held in Bangkok from November 21 to 29.
Spearheaded by the country’s best archer Ruman Sana, the team will feature eight recurve archers and seven compound archers.
Although Bangladesh will definitely look to leave a mark on the 27-nation meet, this event is being seen as a preparation platform for the Bangladesh team’s South Asian Games assignment next month.
Bangladesh Archery Federation general secretary Kazi Rajibuddin Ahmed Chapol, during a press conference at the NSC conference room yesterday, said that they were targeting much better results than what they had achieved in previous editions of the regional multi-sport meet.
“The archers are undergoing the last stages of training now. We are not setting any target for the Asian Championship, which will be a preparation for the SA Games,” Chapol told reporters.
The team will return from Thailand on November 29 and will leave for the SA Games in Nepal on December 3 to compete in 10 events. One more archer, Suma Biswas of compound event, will join the SA Games team after skipping the Asian Championship due to exams, Chapol informed.
Asked whether they were looking for a gold-rush in the SA Games in the absence of regional superpowers India, who have been banned by the World Archery Federation, Chapol said they were not trying to put undue pressure on the archers.
“We are not really taking India’s absence as a big deal. In fact we respect all the other nations as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan have been training under foreign coaches for quite some time. So we don’t want to attach a specific medals target on our archers and thereby jeopardise their chances by putting extra pressure,” the organiser said.
The archery events of the SA Games will be held in Pokhara, Nepal from December 5 to 9 where, apart from the players and coaches, an eight-member Bangladesh team will also work as technical officials of the events.
The press conference was attended, among others, by archery team head coach Martin Frederick and sponsors City Group executive director Zafar Uddin Siddiqui.
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