The Archery Association of India (AAI) has selected Atanu Das to represent the country in the men’s recurve event at the Rio Olympics after conducting trials in Bengaluru. Das, headed to his first Olympics, will be the only male archer in the contingent.
During the trial, the 24-year-old Kolkata lad edged out the experienced former Olympian duo of Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia. It was in fact Champia who had booked the quota place for India in Rio after finishing among the top eight at the World Archery Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark last year.
At the trials in Bengaluru, having made the World Cup stage three semis at the Antalya, Das (653) had bonus points of 1.5 and qualified behind Talukdar (659) and Champia (649). Later in the knockout rounds he defeated both Talukdar and out-of-form Champia.
The women’s recurve team of Deepika Kumari, L Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Manjhi has already qualified for the individual as well as team event in Rio. However, Indian men’s team failed to qualify in the final Olympic qualification.
The four-member Rio-bound team will now camp in Bengaluru till it leaves for the Games.
Das had recently won a silver with Deepika Kumari in the mixed category at the Archery World Cup in Antalya. He had also finished fourth in the individual recurve event at the same event.
Das had earlier bagged two team silver medals (Wroclaw and Medellin, 2014) and two mixed pair bronze medals (Medellin 2013 and 2014) in the World Cups.