Roman to carry hosts' hopes

Whatever recognition Bangladesh archers have earned since their journey began in 2001 has come from the Recurve Bow event and there is no difference this time around as the recurve archers will be carrying the host nation's hopes when the Asian Archery Championship begins tomorrow.

Bangladesh have set their sights on crossing the quarterfinals hurdle as well as improving on their Asian position (ninth) which they secured in 2015 in Asia's biggest show of arrows. These ambitions are at the fingertips of Roman Sana, Tamimul Islam, Ibrahim Sheikh Rezowan and Hakim Ahmed Rubel, who will be competing in both individual and team Recurve Bow events in the six-day bonanza.

Among them, Roman is the only one who had reached the individual recurve bow event quarterfinal in the last edition. However he was ultimately eliminated by South Korea's eventual gold medallist. His teammates Tamim and Rubel have won gold in junior international tournaments but they are budding youngsters in comparison to Roman, who also secured a gold medal in the Asian Grand Prix.

"As Roman has previously reached the quarterfinal stage in the same meet, we have set our sights on the semifinals of the men's event and placed our hopes on him," coach Nisith Das said yesterday at the official press conference of the Championship.

"Roman himself is expecting to reach the semifinals. He is scoring 340 to 342 in practice, which is more than his previous scores of 333 to 335. If he can finish between 1 and 10 in the Ranking Round, then it will be easy for him to reach the quarterfinals," Nisith explained.

However, Roman was disappointed at not getting the opportunity to practice at the match venue, the Bangabandhu National Stadium.

"If we had the opportunity to practice at the main venue for a week then we could have understood where to stand by adjusting to the conditions of the venue. But we are hopeful of getting better results with the preparation we have taken in the past eight months," said Roman.

"It is my target to reach the semifinals but it is a huge matter of luck because champions from the Olympics, Asia Cup and Asian Archery Championship will be competing here. If the weather remains in my favour, I am confident of producing a good result," he continued.

Nisith has expectations from Youth Commonwealth Games gold medallist Tamimul and two newcomers -- Ibrahim and Rubel – as well since all three have good experiences of competing at the international level.

"We have big expectations from Ibrahim and Rubel because they both have good temperament and are scoring consistently in practice," the Indian archery coach said, adding that Rubel won a gold medal in the Recurve mixed team event in the Youth Commonwealth Games in Russia.

Nisith was also optimistic about the prospect of the women's recurve team, which had won silver in the Asia Cup in 2016.