Indian archers hopeful
of medals at Busan

India's newly-acquired South Korean archery coach Chaewoong Lim feels the six archers who will represent the country at the Busan Asian Games should fare well despite the stiff challenge that is expected from his countrymen and other South-East Asian countries.

The former world champion, who was entrusted the job of moulding the Indian archers less than ten weeks before the September 29-October 14 Games, at the Sports Authority of India's training camp at Salt Lake, Kolkata, has enforced a regimen which the archers are happy to adopt.

Additional practice of an-hour-and-a-half every night apart from the routine training has added a new dimension to the build-up to the Games, feel the players.

They say team spirit is higher than ever under the new coach and a medal from the Games is possible.

"We being put through a daily scoring system, black point scoring, night practice and fitness training, which is helping us improve our performance," said one of the archers at the camp.

The men's team comprises veteran Limba Ram, Acharya Ved Kumar, Satyadeo Prasad and Laisalh while Dola Banerjee and Chekrovolu Swuro make up the women's squad.

At the Asian Grand Prix meet, in China, in June, Swuro finished fourth with Dola following immediately behind.

Except veteran Limba Ram, the rest of the men's squad are from Gurukul Prabhat Ashram in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. They are all disciples of Ravindra Singh Sodhi.

The archers, who will participate in the 90, 70, 50 and 30 metres events, have been training hard since the last five months under different coaches. And now with Lim at the helm, they are ready to do battle with the best from China, Korea, Japan and Chinese Taipei.