Indian archers gear up for Indoor Archery World Series


Indian archers gear up for Indoor Archery World Series
Archery

The Archery Association of India (AAI) is looking to field top archers for the first edition of the Indoor Archery World Series which will be a first of its kind online event. The event is scheduled to start on November 21.

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The series will be played under the aegis of World Archer. It will run till February and keep archers occupied in the time of the pandemic, according to AAI secretary general Pramod Chandurkar. “We have sent details to the respective state associations to shortlist archers and forward the names,” he added.

There will be a second leg which will be held in December and a third in January before the final in February. Chandrukar also expressed confidence that the online series will be a good platform for archers to stay focused.

100 entries allowed per federation

The world governing body rules allow each national federation 100 entries for the series, which will be organised in six categories across recurve, the Olympic discipline, and compound. “In case the response is good we will shortlist archers by ranking,” he said.

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Archers will shoot 60 arrows at 18 metres—the Olympic competition is over 70m while it is 18m or 25m indoors. They will be asked to submit their scores through a mobile app. The best three scores will be counted for final ranking at the end of the series in February. The finals are slated on February 27-28.

AAI is also holding open selection trials from November 23-27 in Jamshedpur to provide an opportunity for the country’s second rung of archers. Four top archers in men’s and women’s groups from the Jamshedpur trials will join the top 16 at the pre-Olympic camp now on at Pune’s Army Sports Institute campus.

Meanwhile, World Archery has announced a tentative 2021 Olympic qualifying calendar. The first World Cup is scheduled in Guatemala City from April 19-25 and the second in Shanghai from May 17-21. Paris will stage the final Olympic qualifying event in June.

Also Read: Indian archers aiming to regain lost momentum ahead of Olympics

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