The third National Ranking Archery Tournament 2007 — which is also the selection trials for the 44th World Outdoor Target Archery Championships in Leipzig from July 7 to 15 and the World Cup Archery Tournament (Stage IV) in Dover from July 30 to August 4 — will be held in Kolkata from June 12 to 16.

“This was finalised after Bangalore expressed their inability to hold the event due to some infrastractural problems,” said Gunjan Abrol, assistant secretary of the Archery Association of India (AAI). Earlier, the Mittal Champions’ Trust was supposed to host the meet in Bangalore.

The Kolkata meet attains more significance given the fact that it would be the last chance for out of form Indian ace archer Jayanta Talukdar to regain his place in the Indian team for the world championships. That is also the main qualifying tournament for the Beijing Olympics.

Talukdar, who was back in action in the second national ranking tournament in Pune early in the month after a five-month lay-off due to a shoulder injury, was dropped from the Indian squad for the World Cup Tournament (Stage III) scheduled in Antalya (Turkey) from May 28 to June 2.

Not only Talukdar, the Kolkata meet will also be of immense importance to the other archers as well as none of them have so far made the cut for the Beijing Games.

The first World Cup in Ulsan (Korea) went horribly wrong with Indian men finishing 10th and the women finishing seventh in the first of their five Olympic qualifying rounds. Only Dola Banerjee reached the semi-final and finished 6th overall. Chekrovolu Swuro and Tarundeep Rai managed to reach the quarter finals and pre-quarters, respectively. Swuro finished 9th, while Rai a lowly 21st. In the team event, the women lost to Korea in the quarter finals while the men went down to Mexico by one point in the first round itself.

... contd.