Atanu Das is a young talented archer who is going to represent India at Rio Olympics 2016 in the men’s recurve individual event, and he hopes to clinch a medal for his country by giving his best. Let us now take a look at 10 facts about the archer that you might want to know about:
#1 Atanu Das was born on 5 April 1992 in Kolkata, West Bengal.
#2 Atanu was selected by the Archery Association of India (AAI) to represent India at the Rio Olympics in the men’s recurve event after he had a great show at the trials in Bangalore. He is going to be the only participant from India in the men’s category at the Games. This is going to be his first Olympics.
#3 He had a better performance than the experienced Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia to take part in the Olympics. He scored a total of 653 points and had a bonus of 1.5 points which was better than Talukdar and Singh which helped him qualify for the Olympics.
#4 Das had participated with Deepika Kumari at the Archery World Cup in Shanghai where the duo finished third to win the bronze medal in the mixed category. They had edged out the Koreans 5-4 in a thrilling encounter to bring home the bronze medal.
#5 He had a decent show in the individual recurve event where he finished fourth and missed the bronze by a narrow margin at the World Cup in Antalya. His performance has given him the necessary confidence boost that is required to put up a great show at the Olympics.
#6 The pair of Atanu and Deepika had were the only bright spots in India’s campaign at the Archery World Cup in Antalya, Kazakhstan, as they won the solitary silver medal for the country by finishing second in the mixed category event. They were unable to defeat top-seeded Korean pair Bonchan Ku and Misun Choi who comfortably won 5-1.
#7 Atanu currently works for Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Kolkata.
#8 He started taking archery seriously at the age of 14 and trained at the Tata Archery Academy in 2008 under the guidance of Korean coach Lim Chae Wong. His determination and hard work has seen him become one of the brightest prospects from India in the world of archery, who is expected to take the sport by a storm in the coming years.
#9 He had put up a phenomenal effort against World No.1 Kim Woojin of Korea in the third-place play-off at the Antalya World Cup, and narrowly missed the bronze medal by a whisker after giving a noteworthy performance and giving the reigning top-ranked player in the world a run for his money. He could not capitalize on a 4-0 lead as he lost the match at 10-10 in a shoot-off that saw the Korean’s arrow being nearer to the center, which gave him the win.
#10 He is an experienced campaigner of the sport, and has represented the country in two World Cups. In the 2013 World Cup held in Wroclaw, he won a silver medal in the team event and a bronze medal in the mixed pair event. In the 2014 World Cup in Medellin, he had an encore of his performance in the previous year as he again bagged a team silver medal and a bronze in the mixed pair category.
