Hosts flip the script in 12 years

Exactly 12 years ago, Bangladesh had to be content with only one silver and one bronze medal in the inaugural South Asian Archery Championships at the BKSP but yesterday, on the final day of the third edition of the regional archery extravaganza, the red and green brigade outshone the dominant Indian archers at the same venue to become champions.

All 10 gold medals were up for grabs on the final day, with Bangladesh bagging six. They also won five silver and one bronze medal to finish top of the table, leaving behind Asian powerhouses India, who finished with four gold, five silver and three bronze medals. Sri Lanka and Nepal won three and two bronze medals respectively.

It was the fast-improving Bangladesh archery team's first triumph over India, who had however sent a youthful squad in order to give them international exposure for future Olympic Games under the 'Khelo India' scheme, a national youth (U-17) development programme.

Amidst huge applause from BKSP students and teammates on the calm, green campus of the country's lone sports institution, the Bangladeshi archers made it their day when young archer Ibrahim Sheikh Rejowan stunned the country's number one archer, Roman Sana, by 7-1 set points in an all-Bangladeshi individual recurve final event.

The brilliant performance from 17-year-old Ibrahim in the day's first final was only a glimpse of the surprising results awaiting the hosts, who fought against India in eight gold-medal-deciding matches, while the other two were all-Bangladeshi affairs.

India staged a creditable comeback to win two successive gold medals in the women's individual recurve and men's individual compound events before Roksana Akter equalled the gold medal tally at 2-2 by beating teammate Susmita Bonik in the women's individual compound event.

Before the lunch break, Bangladesh strengthened their stranglehold by winning three more gold medals in the recurve mixed, compound mixed and men's compound team events, while India grabbed just one in the women's recurve team event.

After the break, India beat Bangladesh 227-220 in the women's compound team event and looked poised to mount a challenge. However, the hosts confirmed the Championship by beating India by 6-2 set points in the men's recurve team event final despite a nervy start.

Bangladesh's best find of the Championships was none other than Ibrahim, who succeeded in his second international tournament after participating in the Qualifying tournament of the Youth Olympics held in Dhaka in November last year.

"I did not take any pressure because I know that the experienced Roman bhai is better than me. Besides, I was sure I would get a silver if I lost. From that perspective, I tried to play my own game and at the end won the gold medal," said Ibrahim, the son of a microbus driver.

Bangladesh's German coach Martin Fredrick, who has been with the team for the past month, was ecstatic with the hosts' successes.

"It is a nice representation of our team. I was sure we could win some gold medals but we really have a good number of gold medals at the end of the Championships. So I am happy with the achievement," said Fredrick.

"Like India, we have also young archers in the men's teams and one of cadets is under 16 [years of age], who is our future. India brought a junior team but our team is also a young one that has been gradually improving. However, we have to work on the qualification scores to ensure a better team in the future," said the experienced German coach.

Ashim Kumar Das, a member of the gold winning team in the mixed compound and team compound events, said: "The Indian archers may be young but they are of high quality as they have played a lot of competitions at the domestic and international levels," said 27-year-old Ashim.

Indian coach Kapil Kaushik informed that they had brought the top archers of the 'Khelo India' scheme, which was launched just one month ago by the Indian government.