Archery World Cup: Atanu, Deepika to spearhead challenge

KOLKATA: Olympians Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari will spearhead India's challenge in the first two legs of the archery World Cup to be held in Shanghai and Antalya (Turkey). The four-member men's and women's recurve teams were announced at the end of a tough three-day selection trial at the DDA Yamuna Sports Complex in New Delhi on Monday.
While the top four men and women from the trial will compete in Shanghai (May 14-22) and Antalya (June 4-12), the archers who were fifth to eighth will travel to Salt Lake City, USA, for the third World Cup to be held from June 18-26.
What augurs well for the future is the fact that both the men's and women's teams include a number of juniors after big names and Olympians fell by the wayside in the trial meet.
The 12 top archers from the qualification round made the main selection event from which the top four archers made the India 'A' side and the next four formed India 'B'. While the men's qualification had 39 archers, 21 archers lined up for the women's qualification rounds.
Olympians Rahul Banerjee, Jayanta Talukdar and Tarundeep Rai missed the bus, while Mangal Singh Champia managed to sneak into the India 'B' team for the third leg of the World Cup. The women's section saw the exit of Olympians L Bombayla Debi and Rimil Buriuly, while Rio Games participant Laxmi Rani Majhi made it to the second team. Apart from Atanu, the men's team has Dhaniram, Indrachand and Vishwas while Bengal's Monika Saren, Railways' Preeti and Jharkhand's Ankita Bhakat will join Deepika in the four-member women's team. Both Atanu and Deepika, were able to maintain their positions at top.
Team for WC I, II
Men: Atanu Das (PSPB), Dhaniram (RSPB), Indrachand (Jharkhand), Vishwas (SSCB)
Women: Deepika Kumari (Jharkhand), Monika Saren (Bengal), Ankita Bhakat (Jharkhand), Preeti (RSPB)
Team for WC III
Men: Atul Verma (SSCB), Kapil (RSPB), Mangal Singh Champia (RSPB), Sachin Gupta (Haryana)
Women: Promila Daimary (Assam), Laxmi Rani Majhi (RSPB), N Lavanya (Jharkhand), Gunjan Kumari (Chandigarh).