Indian Archery Thread ...

[jayakris]

Kumari had the best performance of all the Indian candidates yesterday. But if she ends up losing to the Korean phenom in the quarters, people will still see it as a choke. I will only call it a choke if she loses earlier.

No Orang, losing in the quarters to the Korean won't be called a choke by anybody here. Don't worry. If she led the Korean and then fired 7s at the end to lose, we may call it choking.

In fact she did well today in the comeback win against Taiwan in mixed team. She has been fine so far, and not choking or anything. Was not at her best in the qualifying, that is all.

[Kumar]

Eevery olympics we used to have high hopes for medal in archery. Pretty much everyone has written off India in archery this time around. Hopefully the Indian archers relax and bring some medals home

[Orang]

Hope so jayakris! 10s today at the end in the mixed were clutch.

[prasen9]

All useless. We are simply not that good. "Choke" would mean that we are good and leading and at the end you cannot keep your nerves. That is giving too much credit to these folks. Wrt Olympic medal level, we are simply not there. That is it. We do need some Korean greats as coaches, implement a system, and keep winning top tournaments systematically before we can talk about Olympic medals.

[sameerph]

World archery youth championships took place this week in Poland for youth ( under 21 ) and cadet ( under 18).

Lots of medals for our young archers here. Overall compound and recurve archery and cadet/ juniors together we won 8 golds, 2 silver and 5 bronze medals. Major caveat is there was no Korea in this championships and there was no China as well.

Still it shows that we have talent at this level. Now, the question of transition from juniors to seniors which is what we are having trouble with.

The most significant medal was gold in womens under 21 junior women for Komalika Bari. This was the only individual gold medal for us. Komalika was also a world cadet gold medalists in 2019 and is now only second archer after Deepika Kumari to win both cadet and junior titles. But, really want Komalika to have a better transition to seniors than Deepika. Komalika has already played senior events and results have not been good. Hope with the confidence from this junior world title, she will do better in seniors.

We also won gold in mens team and mixed team events in recurve ( olympic event) apart from other events.

Now, can we get some good coaches to take this kids to olympic medal level ?

[prasen9]

Now, the question of transition from juniors to seniors which is what we are having trouble with.

You know better than me Sameer so I rarely nitpick your posts but for the sake of argument, I will do so here. I do not think we are having trouble at the senior level. We only seem to have a problem at the Olympics. This points to lack of sports psychology support and planning. But, if you think we have trouble at the senior level, happy to hear your reasoning.

[sameerph]

Yes, we do have problem of transition from juniors to pros. Couple of examples-

Deepika Kumari was the world cadet champion in 2009 and world junior champion in 2011. In both these events, she beat a Korean in the final. In the qualfication, 3 Korean archers were ahead of Deepika but she went on to beat them to win gold. However, Deepika still does not have an individual medal at a world championships after so many years ( world championships not world cups which are 3-4 in a year and many of them are skipped by best Koreans). She also has not won anything at olympics or even Asian games in individual event. So, that way his QF at Tokyo was her best at this level event. But, clearly she is only a rank 8-16 level archer in the world in seniors while in juniors she looked to be at least top 3 if not better.

In 2014 youth olympics, Atul Verma won bronze beating Turkey's Meto Gezoz. Gezoz has gone on to win gold at Tokyo olympics while Atul Verma is not even being picked for our senior archery team. ( now I see him in the team for world championships in September).

In shooting, we do not have any issue of transition from juniors to seniors and have only the issue of delivering at an olympics for the last 2 events but in archery our junior bests are not able to rise up to the best in the world even at other events.

[jayakris]

^^ Archery needs a foreign coach. Till we appoint a good one, our archers will not win jack.

But then, everything needs foreign coaches, in India. The variable with the best correlation to our medal performances is whether the coach was foreign or not.

[prasen9]

Even better a foreign coach with some record of achievement as a coach.

[jayakris]

^^^ Definitely. It has to be a foreign coach who has won a medal or has taken somebody to a medal; otherwise, the chances are much less.

[sameerph]

The ones who have consistently won medals in Olympics or world championships are Koreans. So, we need a Korean coach and we need him now if we want to medal at Paris 2024. I do not want this girl Komalika Bari who has similar level achievements as Deepika at her age (19) still go haywire after 7-8 years like Deepika is now. I am sure some of these archers have the talent to pull off at least 1 medal at an olympics.

[jayakris]

^^ Koreans should certainly be the first consideration. A problem is that many of the Koreans don't speak English very well, and so only some of the good coaches there are available for coaching abroad.

[jayakris]

World archery, the website of the international archery federation has our girl on the front page now, with this article - Komalika Bari adds under-21 world title to burgeoning resume

[jayakris]

We need to make sure that Komalika gets her Gold at the next Olympics itself, because that is the most probable time for her to get one. Afterwards, pressure will hit her. Here is an interesting article to read - Why do archers win gold at their first Olympics?

Since the modern archery competition began at the 1972 Olympics, 19 of the available 24 individual gold medals have been won by athletes appearing in their first Olympics.

Eight different Korean women have claimed individual gold since 1984, with all eight having won at their first Olympics.

As an aside, a young coach mentioned in that article, Guy Matzkin, sports psychologist who coached the Israeli team, may be a good one to consider to bring to India? He took an unknown guy ranked way low to the SF or something - Shanny, the fellow who beat Tarundeep Rai in a shootout, iirc.

In any event, get Komalika a coach NOW. I don't think anybody is listening though

[prasen9]

Our archers are coming from Jharkhand because of the Tata Archery Academy. Why not create another one in say the South/middle? Bengaluru? Etc.