India's men archers qualify for London Olympics

New Delhi - The Indian men’s archery team, comprising Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Tarundeep Rai, qualified for the London Olympics after they finished second in the qualification of the 3rd Stage World Cup Archery Championship at Ogden, Utah, Friday.

The Indian team will face US in the final for the gold medal match slated for Sunday.

In the Olympic qualifiers, which were held simultaneously, the Indian team finished second in the final losing 218-221 to Japan to book their London ticket.

In the semifinal, they were tied at 202 with Australia. In tie breaker, India led by three points (10 vs 7) in a first arrow and clinched the match in next arrow shooting nine against miss arrow.

Indian archers have now earned maximum six quota places (three women and three men) for the London-Olympic Games. The women’s team of Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro, which had won the silver in the 2011 World Championship Turin had also booked their ticket to London.

Archery Association of India (AAI) president V.K.Malhotra, who is also the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president, praised the men’s team.

“It was an extraordinary tremendous performance by talented and experience team. I don’t have words to describe how well they shoot in the tournament. Indian team fought boldly without caring much of assembled bow used by Rahul Banerjee owing to lost of bow box during transit at this crucial event of Olympic Qualification,” he added.