"Due to very hot and humid weather at Kolkata, which is not suitable for archers for practising, archery Olympic camp has been shifted temporarily to Gangtok from its home camp at SAI Kolkata," AAI general secretary Paresh Nath Mukherjee said.
He stressed that these three weeks of the camp are very crucial for archers to prepare themselves for the competition. SAA president T T Bhutia said such a camp would alsoencourage local players in their game. Chief coach Ahari mentioned that the weather conditions at Gangtok is suitable for archers to continue long sessions of practise and its similarity with conditions in London would also help them prepare better.
The coaching camp is scheduled to continue till June 7.
The men's and women's archery teams comprising three members each will be undergoing around three weeks of coaching here.
The women's team comprises Deepika Kumari, L Bombyala Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro, who have already qualified for the upcoming London Olympics 2012 in individual and team events.
Likewise, men's team has Sikkim's Tarundeep Rai, Jayanta Talukdar and Rahul Banerjee, among them only Jayanta Talukdar has qualified for the London Olympic 2012 in the individual category so far.
Tarundeep and Rahul have their last chance to qualify for the Olympics in the third stage of the Archery World Cup Tournament scheduled to be held at Ogden in USA from 17 to 24 June.
The archers are undergoing training under chief coach Limba Ram Ahari and assisted by Ravi Shankar and Purnima Mahato.
Heat forces shift of Olympic archery camp to Sikkim
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