He said, Mr Vijay Kumar Malhotra, President, Archery Association of India has announced that a Prize Money of Rs 25 lakhs would be given during the year for the NRAT’s and the Final .
The Andhra Pradesh Archery Association is hosting the 1st National Ranking Archery Tournament – 2013 at the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh, Sports Complex, Gachibowli, Hyderabad on the 23rd and 24th of February. This tournament carries a prize money of Rs 3 lakhs and Rs 25 lakhs prize money spread over various archery tournaments including four National Ranking Tournaments across the year, has been allocated.
Top Archers of India, both in the Recurve division and Compound division would be participating in this Tournament. The Indian Team for the forthcoming competition in Bangkok will also be selected based on this Tournament.
About 80 Archers of the country will be seen in action. The top Archers would include : In the Recurve division, Deepika Kumari , World No. 2 in the World Cup Finals of 2011 and 2012 ; Jayanth Talukdar , No 3 in the World Cup Finals 2010 ; Dola Banerjee , the winner of the World Cup Final in 2007 , Tarundeep Rai , Silver medallist in 2010 Asian Games , etc In the Compound division Isiah R Sanam who was the Gold medallist in the Asian Championship 2009 etc .
On the 23rd, the preliminary events would be held. On the 24th, the Compound division Finals would start at 2.30 pm and the Recurve division Finals would start thereafter.
The finals scheduled on February 24th, 2013 between 2.30 and 5.30 pm will simulate the ambience of international tournaments like Olympics by including a 20 ft screen displaying the on field action, this is for our archers to get exposed to the same and perform confidently in the international arena too, he said.
Top Andhra Pradesh archers including Asiaha Sanam, Jignas, Ritul Chaterjee, Jyoti Surekha are participating in this tournament.
He said the 2nd National Ranking Tournament will be held in Jamshedpur in the Month of April, 2013. A decision is yet to be taken on the venues for the other two National Raking Tournaments and the finals, he added.
India has been consistently performing well in the international arena, off the 140 countries competing in archery tournaments; India has always been in the top ten ranks. We have amidst us World champion besides Rank 2, 3 & 5, Mr. Anil Kamineni said.
The Andhra Pradesh Archery Association would be presenting mementos to honour all its International Archers on this occasion.
