Nagpur’s Ojas on the mark, all set to make 2026 his own

Nagpur: Star Nagpur archer Ojas Pravin Deotale gave a rousing start to 2026 and continued his top form, which the 23-year-old secured in the year-ending national championships.India's first compound archery World Champion and Asian Games' triple gold medallist, Ojas not only emerged as the National archery champion but also matched the world record of Denmark's Mathias Fullerton for a 15-arrow compound match with 13 'X's (inner-most scoring rings) and a perfect score of 150 last month in Hyderabad.The reigning national compound archery champion gave the New Year a perfect start. In the 1st Open Selection Trials to select the top 16 archers as core probables for the Asian Games and Senior Archery Team for World Cup Stage 1 and 2, Ojas emerged on top of the table in the 3 compound men's qualification rounds at the SAI campus, Kolkata, West Bengal.Accumulating a total of 2134 points in the 3 rounds of 2 events each, Ojas took the top spot. Ojas was followed by Haryana's Kushal Dalal (2131) and Sahil Jadhav of the RSPB (2130) as the top 3 finishers.In the second event, the 12 archers from a total of 228 participants will be drawn to face each other in the round-robin format for the final rankings.Ojas started the opening round with a bang. In the first event, comprising 2 outings of 50 metres each, Ojas took the lead by winning it with 714 points. He started the trials with a score of 352 and followed it up with 358 points.Ojas finished the second and third events with 710 points each to register a table-top finish with a total score of 2134.