Archery competition begins with new rules

Jamshedpur, Feb 21 (PTI) Archery competition opened inthe 34th National Games at the JRD Tata Sports Complex heretoday with the Indian round and changes made in the qualifyingand scoring system.

For the first time, the Archery Association of Indiaintroduced two 50m events as qualifying rounds in place of 50mand 30m distances. This changed the whole gamut of the sport.

The AAI also introduced set score system in the Olympicround as practised in modern archery. The only old systemremaining in the competition was the 50m distance which sawboth the men''s and women''s records being improved.

Sunil Oraon of Services accumulated 337 out of 360 pointsto improve upon the previous record of 322 points by AjayDamal of Services set at Guwahati in 2007.

Similarly, the women''s section also saw a new mark withAnima Basumatary of Assam scoring 319 out of 360, bettering BLucy Devi''s 2007 mark of 312.

The two-round total of 661 by Sanjay Rai of Maharashtrais the new mark for overall score in the men''s section andAnima Basumatary''s 624 points is the new overall record in thewomen''s category.

The men''s team total of 1946 by Services and women''s teamtotal of 1850 points by Assam will be the new records.

Konsai Borgayary of Assam will take on A Suraj Singh ofServices in the men''s gold medal contest while Rohit Singh ofBihar and N Subhaschandra of Manipur will clash in the bronzemedal play-off tomorrow.

In the women''s section, K Prabhahimi Devi of Manipur willclash with Jayalaxmi of Jharkhand in the gold medal contest.

Meena Kumari of Delhi will challenge Th Ishembi Devi ofManipur in the bronze medal play-off.

The Results:

Indian round men''s qualification: 1. Sanjay Rai (Mah) 329+332=661; 2. Tarak Chaudhury (Ben) 327+333=660; 3. NSubhaschandra (Mnp) 321+336=657.

Women: 1. Anima Basumatary (Asm) 305+319=624; 2. PallabiBoro (Asm) 308+307=615; 3. Th Ishembi Devi (Mnp) 311+301=612.

Team: Men: 1. Services 1946; 2. Bihar 1953; 3. Tripura1928.

Women: 1. Assam 1850; 2. Manipur 1821; 3. Jharkhand 1781.