Top archers to battle it out in Senior Nationals in Cuttack

Top Indian archers will be seen in action in the Senior Nationals followed by selection trials for the World Championships, beginning here on Sunday.

The new regime of the Archery Association of India (AAI), under president BVP Rao, has made a slew of changes to ensure a fair and transparent selection of four members each for India A and B teams.

Overall, 1100 archers from 32 states and six affiliated units will compete in the three disciplines of recurve, compound and Indian rounds in both men's and women's sections.

For the first time, there would be a system of bonus and penalty points.

The Olympic round will be a round-robin affair where all the 12 archers, who qualify from the first event, will compete in one-play-all format that will eliminate any chance of favouritism.

The first event of the three-day trials will see 24 archers (16 from first stage trial in Rohtak in January plus eight from the nationals) fighting it out.

The selection trials for recurve will be from March 13 to 15, followed by compound trials and the entire process will be convened by former Olympian Lalram Sanga.

This has been done in consultation with the World Archery and federations from USA, France among other nations as.

The top four archers in the trials at KIIT University in Bhubaneswar will be India's entry for the first and the third stages of the World Cup and the World Championships at the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch in June that will offer quota places for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

But before the selection trials, all eyes would be on India's top recurve pair of Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari in the 39th Senior National Archery Championship at the Barabati Stadium here.

Atanu lost to Priyank in the pre-quarterfinals of the last nationals in Pune and he would look to bounce back and dethrone defending champion Shukmani Babrekar of Maharashtra.

It will be an exciting opportunity for youngsters like Akash Malik, who clinched a silver in the Youth Olympics last year.

The women's sections will see reigning champions Deepika (recurve) and Jyothi Surekha Vennam (compound) striving to retain their crowns.

Rajat Chauhan is the defending champion in the compound section but he will have a tough fight against India number one Abhishek Verma in the 15th National Compound Competition.

There will also be competition for the 26th National India Round Championship.