Archery: Indian team for 2019 World Championships confirmed

The 2019 World Archery Championships are going to be the first opportunity for archers to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and India confirmed the squad it is going to field for the event beginning on June 10 in the Netherlands. The squad includes some of India's strongest international archers like Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das and compound archers Jyothi Surekha and Abhishek Verma. The selection trials for the Recurve team took place in Cuttack between 13-15 March, while Compound team trials were held in Bhubneshwar between 16-19 March. Deepika Kumari emerged at the top at the end of the Recurve trials and finds a deserved place in the squad. The Recurve Women's team is an interesting mix of young blood and experience as Kumari is joined by the veteran Bombayla Devi and 17-year old newcomer Komalika Bari. This same squad will also be representing the country at the first and third stages of the 2019 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Medellin, Colombia and Antalya, Turkey respectively. There, the reserve team consisting of Atul Verma, Madhu Vedwan, Aman Saini and Swati Dudhwal will be joining them. Among the Recurve men, Atanu Das the seasoned archer makes his appearance. He will be joined by Tarundeep Rai and Praveen Jadhav. All eyes will be on Compound archer and world no 8 Abhishek Verma who recently proved his mettle with a Bronze at the Archery World Cup Finals at the end of 2018. Archers Rajat Chauhan and Bhagwan Das also make the cut. The Compound team will also include top Indian compound archery Jyothi Surekha Vennam, youngster Muskan Kirar and Kaur Raj.

The Olympic qualification process

"Eight recurve men’s teams and eight recurve women’s teams will qualify places for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in ’s-Hertogenbosch, making it a critical event for high-performance archery programmes worldwide." -via worldarchery.org

The team:

• Recurve men: Tarundeep Rai, Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav
• Recurve women: Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram, Komalika Bari
• Compound men: Abhishek Verma, Bhagwan Das, Rajat Chauhan
• Compound women: Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Muskan Kirar, Kaur Raj