Archers to vie for top honours

Some of India's top archers, including Rahul Banerjee and Deepika Kumari, will vie for top honours at the two-day 2nd National Ranking Archery Tournament, beginning here from Friday.
The top 16 men in recurve and compound and eight women each in both the sections were selected based on their performance at the National Archery Championship, held in Chennai last December, Jharkhand Archery Association sources said today.
Eight junior archers in men and women in recurve and compound were picked based on their performance in the last Junior National championship, they said.
Top rung archers Deepika Kumari (women's recurve) Rahul Banerjee (men's recurve), Ch. Jignas (men's compound) and Jyothi Surekha (women's compound) will take part in the meet, which will see participation from over 100 archers.

Deepika, Tata Steel Manager (Sports) and Banerjee topped the women and men's recurve section in the 1st National Ranking Archery Tournament in Hyderabad in February.
A Naik, an army subedar and 19-year-old Ch. Jignas, Vijayawada-based Volga Archery academy's favourite archer, grabbed the gold in the individual segment by defeating China's He Ying 145-142 in the 1st Asian Grand Prix at Bangkok last month.

He, along with Sandeep Kumar and Abhishek Varma clinched the team gold by outplaying Vietnam in the final.
Another archer from Vijayawada, top ranked Jyothi Surekha, did not take part in the Bangkok tourney as she was appearing for her intermediate exams.

The meet has been organised by Tata Steel in association with the Jharkhand Archery Association.