Asian Archery Championship: Abhishek Verma, Vennam Jyothi Surekha To Lead Indian Charge

World Championship silver medallists Abhishek Verma and Vennam Jyothi Surekha were on Monday named in India’s squad for the upcoming Asian Championship in Dhaka. (Other Sports News)

Verma, Rishabh Yadav, Mohit and Aman Saini form the compound men's team while the women's team features Surekha, Muskan Kirar, Priya Gurjar and Parneet Kaur as the Archery Association of India (AAI) announced the team.

The 22nd edition of the continental tournament will be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh from November 13 to 19.

Following the World Championship in the USA in September, Verma and Surekha shot perfect scores of 150 in their respective gold medal matches to emerge as individual champions at the 40th National Archery Championships in Jamshedpur last Wednesday.

In men’s recurve, the Indian team comprises Kapil, Parth Salunkhe, Sukhchain Singh and Pravin Jadhav. The women’s recurve team consists of Ridhi, Ankita Bhakat, Komalika Bari and Madhu Vedwan.

Both Verma and Surekha had bagged a mixed team silver in the World Championships in Yankton, USA, before their impressing performance in the Nationals at the Tata Archery Academy ground.

In the individual event at Yankton, the 23-year-old Ankita held her nerves to eliminate Korean world number four Kang Chae-Young, a team Olympic gold-medallist at the recently-concluded Tokyo Games.

Komalika won the Under-21 World Championship title in Wroclaw, Poland to add to the U-18 title she won in Madrid in 2019, becoming the second Indian woman to achieve the feat after Deepika Kumari.

It was a new-look Indian squad that took the field at the World Championships last month in the absence of established names such as Deepika, Atanu Das and Tarundeep Rai.