Archer Champia leads Indian men’s charge in World Cup
May 29th, 2008 - 5:32 pm ICT by admin
Kolkata, May 29 (IANS) Archer Mangal Singh Champia sparkled as the Indian men stood overall second in the FITA round recurve bow qualification of the third Meteksan World Cup at Antalya in Turkey. Champia, India’s lone Olympic qualifier in the men’s division, kept his composure as he shot his arrows with great precision to finish first in a strong field that included the formidable Koreans. He scored a career-best 684 points over two 70m rounds of the FITA event Wednesday, according to information received here.
The Indian was tied with Korean archer Park Kyung Mo at 684, but Champia’s higher number of 10 pointers — 41 as against 37 shot by Park — earned him the top place which ensured his passage into the individual competition as the top seed. Champia also came close to breaking the existing 72-arrow world record, but fell three points short of Korean Dong Hyun’s mark of 687 set at the Athens Olympics in 2004.
Champia’s heart-warming performance, coupled with some world class shooting by his two team mates — Jayanta Talukdar (678, 4th) and Rahul Banerjee (673, 8th) — propelled the Indian men to the second slot behind Korea with a score of 2035 points. Korea’s total of 2039 erased their existing world record of 2031 at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The fourth Indian in fray, Priyank, finished 29th (657).
The good mood in the Indian camp was, however, dampened by a below-par performance by the Indian women. Dola Banerjee’s poor form continued as she failed to make her way into the main competition, finishing way below at 67th with a total of 591 Only the first 64 qualify for the individual competition out of 100 in fray.
However, Reena Kumari, Punya Prabha and Laishram Bombayla Devi made the cut for the women’s individual main competition.
Reena, who got into the Indian Olympic side at the expense of Chekrovolu Swuro of Nagaland following the trials, finished 28th with 625 points. Punya Prabha, the fourth archer, stood at 46th with 608 while Bombayla Devi ended 49th with 604.
The Indian women’s team, comprising Dola, Reena and Bombayla, totalled 1820 points to occupy the 13th place.
- Indian men 3rd, women 6th in archery World Cup qualifiers - Aug 06, 2010
- Early exit for Indians in archery World Cup - Aug 06, 2010
- World Cup Stage I archery: Indians put up a modest show - May 04, 2011
- Asian Games archery: Deepika seventh, team 5th in women's qualifying - Nov 19, 2010
- Deepika second Indian woman archer to reach World Cup final - Sep 02, 2010
- Archers confident of rich medals haul in Games - Sep 10, 2010
- Little known Iranian shocks Talukdar in Archery World Cup - Jun 09, 2011
- Asian Games archery: Modest show by Indians - Nov 20, 2010
- Pranitha, Dola make it to Beijing Olympics - Jun 29, 2008
- Archery World Cup Stage II: Deepika Kumari lifts Indian team to 2nd place - Jun 08, 2011
- Indian women's archery team qualifies for Olympics (Lead) - Jul 06, 2011
- Archery World Cup: Dola, Reena compete for lone bronze medal - Apr 04, 2009
- Asian Games archery: Deepika loses bronze play-off (Roundup) - Nov 23, 2010
- Indian archers will target Olympic berth at World meet - Jun 30, 2011
- World Cup archery: Indian women in bronze medal play-off - Jun 10, 2011
Tags: antalya, archer park, arrows, athens olympics, atlanta olympics, composure, good mood, indian men, indian women, kolkata, koreans, mangal singh, meteksan, nagaland, olympic qualifier, pointers, prabha, team mates, world cup, world record