Asian Championships in New Delhi

November 4, 2005 – Lausanne, Switzerland

India has made major progress in archery for the last few years and it hopes to earn some great results at the 14th Asian Outdoor Archery Championships. New Delhi hosts this exciting competition on November 5-10th.

The usual format of major tournaments is use with a qualifying round, and then head-to-head matches for the top archers (usually 32) per division. Both men and women compete in recurve or compound bows. The individual finals take place on November 9, and the team’s finals on the 10th.

More than 180 athletes from 18 countries compete for the supremacy in one of the top continents for archery. Korea is the big favourite in the recurve (used in Olympics) divison and brings a tremendous team. Among the men’s squad, Kyung Mo Park and
Dong Hyun Im were Team Olympic Champions in Athens and Worlds’ medallists on previous occasions. Their team-mate Bo Ram Kim, former silver medallist at the Atlanta Games, is making a come back to the top level. Competition should come from Kuo Chen Wei (TPE), winner of the Izmir Universiade in 2005, and his team-mate Chen Szu Yuan, 7th in Athens 2004. Also in the mix, the iron man Hiroshi Yamamoto (JPN), 3rd in… Los
Angeles 84 and 2nd in Athens 2004, together with Masayoshi Inamoto, 2nd at the World Championships in Madrid last June. Tarundep Rai (IND), 4th at the Worlds, carries the best chance for the home side.

On the women’s side, the Koreans are even more impressive. Here is three of a kind:

Sing Hyun Park : world record woman with 1405 pts in a qualification round. She earned the gold in Athens, the silver at the Worlds in New York 2003, and the bronze in Madrid 2005.

Mi Jin Yun : gold in Sydney 2000, gold in New York 2003.

Sung Jin Lee : silver in Athens, gold at the Universiade 2005 and the Worlds 2005.

Of course, the three Koreans were part of the team that won gold in Athens as well. The main competition will come from Juanjuan Zhan (CHN), who has been regularly in the top 10 for the last 5 years. We will also keep an eye on the progress made by Dola Bannerjee (IND) and Tshring Choden (BHU).

The compound division is the host’s best chance for a gold medal. Their opponents come from China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Ladies and Gentlemen, draw your bow !

Didier Miéville
FITA Communication
Av de Cour 135
1007 Lausanne
Email : dmieville@archery.org
Tél. 021 614 3050