Compound archers, shinning spot of Indian archery in 2009

A historical performance by compound archers in the Asian Championship, followed by young Deepika Kumari's Youth World crown and mixed success in the fancied recurve section summed up Indian archery's exploits in 2009, a year seen as the preparation stage for next year's Commonwealth Games.

With main thrust on the high-profile Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi in October next year, Indian archers began the year with full of promise and optimism, bringing in former Olympian Limba Ram as the national coach.

To add to it, the Archery Association of India (AAI) also roped in former Australian coach Peter Feeney to lift the performance in compound section. But Feeney's association with India lasted for only six months as the compound archers did not have a desired show under the Australian.

But, ironically, after Feeney's exit, India's compound archers grew in stature and the best came in the Asian Archery Championship in Bali, Indonesia in November when the men's compound archers created history.

Andhra Pradesh lad Isiah Rajendra Sanam became the cynosure of all eyes in Bali when he helped India win the team compound gold before making it a double by clinching the yellow metal in the individual section.

Sanam alongwith C Srither, KH Ratan Singh won the men's team compound gold beating Iran 231-230 in a thrilling finish. Sanam, ranked 15th, continued his winning run in the event and upset number four ranked Nyoman Puruhito of Indonesia 106-103 to win individual compound gold, the best ever show by India at the world stage after compound bow archery made its debut in the country in early 2003.

Overall, India ended the Asian Championship with two gold, two silver and two bronze medals as against one gold, one silver and two bronze medals in the last edition in Xi'an, China two years back.

As a matter of fact, the compound archers overshadowed the famed recurve trio of Rahul Banerjee, Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia, who lost to Korea to settle for the silver.

However, the biggest disappointment came from the women recurve archers who had won the team bronze medal at Xi'an but the four-member team drew a blank this time around.

Earlier in July, Indian archery got a new talent in 15-year-old Deepika, who won the  gold in the cadet recurve section in the Youth World Archery Championship at Ogden in the US, thereby giving India its second world junior title.

Apart from the Jharkhand girl, Sanjay Boro shone in the boys category by winning the bronze in the cadet recurve. However, the famed Indian recurve archers had a mixed result in 2009, a cause of concern ahead of the Delhi Games.

The men's recurve team, seeded third, failed to go past the quarterfinals stage in the 45th World Archery Championship in Ulsan in September. There was more disappointment in store when the women's recurve team comprising veteran Dola Banerjee, Pratima Boro and Rimil Biruly failed to qualify for the team championship.

Even though the the recurve archers missed out on a medal in the fourth stage, they had a good outing in the opening three stages of the World Cup. Recurve ace Talukdar earned himself three gold, one silver and a bronze in the first three stages of the World Cup to get top billing for the World finals in Copenhagan.

But a gold in the World finals eluded Talukdar for a second time, when the Indian lost to fourth-seeded Italian Marco Galiazzo in the semifinals 103-111 and later was beaten by third seeded Romain Girouille of France 110-113 in the bronze medal play-off match.

Overall, India bagged one men's recurve team gold, one woman individual bronze and a women's compound team bronze in the World Cup Stage I in Santo Domnig. In stage II in Porec the Indians bagged one men's recurve individual gold and one men's recurve team gold.

India won one men's recurve team silver, men's recurve individual bronze and women's recurve team bronze in stage III in Antalya, while they returned empty handed from stage IV in Shanghai.

All in all notwithstanding a few misses, Indian archers will count on the positives in the year gone to come out with flying colours in the CWG which will have eight gold and equal number of silver and bronze medals up for grab.