Row over Archery ‘selections’

Hyderabad: International archer and coach, Nachupally Arun Kumar has hit out at the administrators of the Hyderabad Archery Association (HAA) and particularly against its Secretary, P Arvind Kumar, for ‘goofing up’ the chances of international N Abhishek Kumar in getting qualified for the national youth team.

In a release here on Thursday, Arun Kumar, who was an official at the London Olympics, said that his protégé Abhishek Kumar was not informed about the conduct of selection trials for the Youth World Championships. The trials were held at Army Sports Institute in Pune from September 1 to 3. Arun Kumar pointed out that the intimation was given to all State bodied by the Archery Association of India (AAI) on August 10 but the HAA had addressed it ‘in the right earnest’.

He said that he learnt about the dates from a friend just four days prior to the trials. Despite having only three days of practice, Abhishek finished fourth but missed out on a berth by a single point. Arun Kumar has called for a thorough investigation into the faux pas so that future selections would be conducted with a better coordination and all contenders would get an opportunity to stake a claim.