Among the Indians who participated in the 44th World Outdoor Archery Championships in Leipzig recently were Dola Banerjee and Tarundeep Rai — whose experience, exposure and achievements overshadow others in the squad. But interestingly, they were the ones who performed miserably.

As a fall-out, the women somehow managed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, thanks to Chekrovolu Swuro and Bombayla Devi’s performance, while the men lost to Italy in the first round despite being in the lead for most part of the shoot-out. This loss has virtually wiped out any chance of their qualifying for the Summer Games.

“We still have a chance of grabbing two individual places from the September Asian Championships, but the team’s qualification chances are more or less over,” said team coach Sanjeev Singh.

Archery is a discipline the Sports Ministry identified for prospective medals. So what went wrong? Some archers blame the lack of planning in the Archery Association of India (AAI). Senior AAI officials call these allegations “typical Indian attitude of finding excuses for failure.”

Dola has been very vocal about her displeasure on the current set up. “It just can’t go on like this,” she says. “Every time the coach who accompanies the team joins us just seven to 10 days prior to any major tournament. That duration is not enough to iron out chinks. We need a coach who can be with the team for a longer duration and suggest changes they want.”

“A lot has changed in archery, and you need to be that much more focused. So if there is someone who knows you personally it helps. Say a coach joins seven days before departure. Of that, three days are spent running for visas and such, two days talking to the media and meeting officials. What are we left with?” asked another senior member who refused to be named.

... contd.