He raised hopes of a medal with a world-class performance in the qualifiers before coming down crashing in the elimination round. While some would say Mangal Singh Champia had a rollercoaster of a debut at the Olympics, the archer prefers to call Beijing 2008 a learning curve.

India’s only male entry in archery, Champia qualified with the second best score, but lost to the eventual bronze medallist, Bair Badenov of Russia by a solitary point — 109-108 — in the pre-quarterfinals. Reflecting on the loss, Champia, talking to The Indian Express, said the lack of knowledge of ranges in Beijing did him in.

“For us Indians, the major difficulties were the nature of the range and the weather,” said the 25-year-old from Singhbhum, Jharkhand.

“The range used in the qualifying rounds was different from the one used in the main rounds. None were completely covered. Here at SAI we do practice in open, but we hardly have that kind of blustery wind.

“We didn’t have experience of competing in such ranges. And we didn’t get sufficient time to adjust,” Champia rued, even as he conceded that he fared below par against his Russian rival.

“My score in the second round was below par. Here, I often score 115 to 116 during practice,” said the archer, who had performed consistently well in the run up to the Games.

But all that is past, something Champia isn’t too keen to delve into for long. Instead, he’s focusing on future — the 2012 Olympics in London — and has already started preparing for it.

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