Rajat Chauhan reigns supreme at Red Fort

NEW DELHI: Sweden's Daniel Forsberg and her colleague Andreanna Humphrey from Australia had started for a city tour in the morning but a number of banners pointing to archery's makeshift arena on the backdrop of Red Fort caught their attention.
"Unexpected and unplanned, this was an interesting experience," Forsberg said. Like them, many curious visitors strayed into the arena to witness the Tata National Ranking Archery Tournament finale much to archery federation's expectation.Asian Games gold-winning teammates Rajat Chauhan and Abhishek Verma got engaged in a mouth-watering compound archery final that ended with a tie-break. Rajasthan's Rajat lead 58-57 when the duel began but struck a nine followed by a poor eight as Abhishek held his nerve with two 10s and a nine to march ahead 116-115.
The Delhi boy, however, lost composure in the final shootout allowing the match to slip in a tie-break. Taking full advantage, Rajat shot a 10 to take the title.
"Pressure has no place in my life. I don't think much about winning or loosing and accept both equally .There are some moments in the game when you make mistakes but I took the match to the tie-break. I kept calm and controlled my heart beat because I knew if I give my best, I would win," said Rajat, who had earlier won the junior title defeating Services' CH Jignas 147-143. Rajat took home a total prize purse of Rs 1,60,000. This is Rajat's last year in the junior category , but the Rajasthan lad will give the junior Nationals a miss for he will be busy running behind ministry officials hoping to get a job that can take care of his family expenses. "I didn't take a break after Asian Games. I will be busy completing the paper work for the cash award announced by the Rajasthan government," said Rajat who made headlines with his 2-14 Asiad show.
"But only money won't help. I sacrificed three years of my education for archery and now that I have won a medal I hope the government announces a job too. Job security will take away my family worries and help me take my game to the next level," Rajat, who has applied for Class 12 exam thrice already but couldn't appear due to his schedule, said.
Unlike Rajat, Maharashtra's Purvasha Shende has set her sights on next month's junior National title.The girl from Amravati, who started archery in 2009, won a medal in each category (gold in sub-junior and silver each in junior and senior category) on Sunday . Purvasha lost her final to a more experienced Trisha Deb of Punjab 144-140 in senior and to Jharkhand's Madhumita Kumari 138-143 in junior category . She beat K Jyotshna 137-132 to take sub-junior title. Purvasha earned a total of Rs 1,65,000.
"I won silver in senior Nationals and got medals in all three categories today . Playing a cash award tournament almost every month is a big motivation factor. One can use the money to purchase equipments. Archery's bow and arrow costs anything between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh," she said.