PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Oct 2: Union tribal affairs minister and president of Archery Association of India (AAI) Arjun Munda today inaugurated the 40th NTPC Senior National Archery Championship organised under the aegis of the Jharkhand Archery Academy at Tata Archery Academy (TAA), JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur.
The nine-day event will conclude on October 10. Tata Archery Academy which is celebrating its silver jubilee was given the responsibility of hosting the event.
Chanakya Chaudhary, vice -president, Corporate Services, Tata Steel, Pramod Chandrukar, secretary-general, Archery Association of India and Partha Mazumdar, regional executive director (Coal Mining) at NTPC were present during the inaugural function.
Munda declared the meet open and welcomed the archers who had come from different parts of the country. He alongwith other guests also paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi on his birth anniversary today.
Chanakya Chaudhary, vice- president, Corporate Services, Tata Steel said the Tata Archery Academy is delighted to host the 40th NTPC Senior National Archery Championship. The Academy is also proud to be part of this national event on its 25th anniversary.
Since archery is a preferred sport among the community, especially tribal youth, living in and around our areas of operations, TAA was formed in 1996 to identify and train potential among the youth in archery and inspire them to achieve excellence in national and international-level archery tournaments.
The nine-day-long sports extravaganza will witness the presence of hundreds of eminent archers from across the country, team officials from 40 states, sports control or promotion boards, esteemed juries among others.
The action-packed event will have Indian Round, Compound and Recurve National (men & women). Senior National will be conducted in three phases with Indian Round event from October 2 to 3, followed by Compound event from October 5 to 6 and Recurve (Olympic) event from October 8 to 9.
The senior national is of immense importance as the top 16 rank holders in Recurve Men, Recurve Women, Compound Men and Compound Women categories will be picked from this championship for the final trials to be held on October 10 and 11 at Jamshedpur. This will be basis of Indian team’s selection for the Asian Archery Championship-Dhaka.