Bullseye for these girls

Eight undergraduate students from Shasun Jain College are all set to fly to France to participate in the third stage of Indoor Archery World Cup, which will be held from Jan 19 to 21.
Chennai Times chats up with the students, their coach and the college authorities to know more about archery on the campus...
WHY ARCHERY?
Abhay Kumar Jain, secretary, Shasun Jain College, starts off, “It’s a part of our heritage, culture and history.It’s in our blood. After the last Olympics, we wanted to have an archery team from here. Also, the availability of an international-level coach, Hu was another reason. Thus the Shasun-Hu-Olympic Archery Medal Quest was started. Hu has been with us for the last one year, coaching the archers, for which he doesn’t charge any fee. We have a short-term goal of 2020 Olympic medals. And of the 12 members of the Indian contingent that competed in the Indoor Archery World Cup, Stage II, held in Bangkok, eight were our students,” he says.
THE BEGINNING
“When we announced the initiative, 508 students showed interest. They underwent training for one month,” says B Poonra, college principal. Shihan Hussaini (Hu), a mind coach and founder, and general secretary of The Archery Association of Tamil Nadu (TAAT), who has been coaching the students says, “For short-listing the future archers, we made them go through a gruelling session. They were made to do tough physical exercises; every movement of theirs was watched and their mental strength was analysed. Finally eight people were short listed. We started training them in January 2017. We had to start from scratch. From convincing the students to their families, it was not easy.”
A DAY IN THEIR LIVES
Akshaya Lakshmi, who competes in the compound archery, says that their day starts at 3.30am. “Then there are rituals — there’s mission oath, personal oath and training oath, which is followed by meditation,” she says. They practise till 9.30pm, after which they engage in mind-strengthening exercises. The college has allotted rate teachers for that they don’t classes.
ON A WINNING SPREE
In a span of one year, these students — Nivetha G, Kamana Parmar, Uma Maheswari, Deheswari, Akshaya Lakshmi, Mohana Priya R, Yuva Shree JT and Mahima Prajapati — have become the number one archery team in Tamil Nadu. Hu says, “In the Tamil Nadu state meet the team bagged 29 medals and also they won the Pascal Calmer Trophy for their outstanding performance.” The team also won the Chief Minister’s trophy in the Pondicherry state meet. Niveda is elated that she competed with Deepika Kumari, world’s no. 5 archer, at the Thailand World Cup. She says, “When we started training, we wanted to get an autograph from Deepika. But our coach said we should focus on competing with her. It came true. Though I didn’t win the medal, Deepika came to me and said, ‘You did such a good job that it was a very tough fight’.”
Though the team did not win any medals at Thailand, it gave them an opportunity to compete with some of the world’s best archers. Mohanapriya R, who competed with world’s number one compound shooter Sara Lopez, says, “Now we are confident that we can compete with international archers.” At Thailand, Akshaya was paired with Dahlia Crook, US’s No.1 shooter.