KOLKATA: Less than a year before the Paris Olympics, Indian archers will begin their quest to earn Games quota places at the Archery World Championships in Berlin. A total of 530 archers - both recurve and compound - from more than 80 countries will take part in the biggest archery tournament of the year. Among them, around 330 will fight for as many as 24 Olympic quota places which will be up for grabs in this five-day event beginning on Tuesday.
With change in qualification process this time, the top three teams (previously it used to be eight) in both men's and women's recurve category will be awarded three quota places apiece. The top three finishers in men's and women's individual recurve, too, will earn their tickets to Paris.
The other five places will be awarded to the continental team champions in Europe, Asia and the America, plus the top two unqualified teams on the world ran king list after the final qualifier.
The mixed team event in Berlin will not count towards Olympic qualification. Unlike World Cups, where four archers can compete, only three members in each category will represent each section in Berlin with India announcing a 12-member squad for the event. It will be an uphill task for the recurve archers as a new-look team will lock horns with the world's bests.
While the men's recurve team will feature Dhiraj Bommadevara, Mrinal Chauhan, Tushar Shelke, the women's side will have Bhajan Kaur, Ankita Bhakat and Simranjeet Kaur. The recurve archers returned empty-handed from the last championship in Yankton, USA in 2021 with Bhakat being the only Indian archer to reach the individual quarterfinals.
The recurve archers have a dismal season so far with the team being changed for each World Cup. Services archer Bommadevara is the only recurve archer to earn a podium at the World Cups this year with a bronze at Antalya, Turkey. He along with Olympians Tarundee p Rai and Atanu Das won a silver in the team event there too.
However, the compound archers stand a much better chance to finish on the podium. Jyothi Vennam has already won two gold -one each in individual and mixed team event - and young Prathamesh Jawkar stunned world No. 1 Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands to bag individual gold at the World Cup St age II in China. The compound team will also feature seasoned Abhishek Verma, who made a strong comeback to the side winning an individual gold in the World Cup Stage III in Colombo.
The 16year-old Aditi Swami had also made her presence felt with a memorable World Cup debut by breaking the women's U-18 compound qualification world record. But with compound not being part of the Olympics, their efforts will end at the podium.
