Khelo India monthly archery tournament kicks off at SAI Sonepat

Sonepat (Haryana) [India], November 7 : The inaugural session of the 1st Khelo India Archery Tournament kicked off at Sports Authority of India's (SAI) NCOE Sonepat Centre on Sunday.
The monthly tournament, which is being conducted in a joint partnership of Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Archery Association of India (AAI) saw the participation of a total of 169 archers (93 in Recurve Category and 76 in Compound Category) from 10 states and Union Territories.
The results of Sunday's event are as follows:
Senior Recurve Women - Double 70 Mtrs: 1) Varsha Sona - NCOE Sonepat - 654, 2) Tisha Punia - Haryana - 641 and 3) Anushika - Punjab - 639.
Senior Recurve Men - Double 70 Mtrs: 1) Sachin Gupta - Haryana - 668, 2) Raju Lal Meena - Rajasthan - 661, and 3) Dhruv Bagga - Delhi - 654
Junior Recurve Women - Double 70 Mtrs: 1) Bhajan Kaur - Haryana - 632,2) Tanisha Verma - Haryana - 625 and 3) Avani - Haryana - 624.
Junior Recurve Men - Double 70 Mtrs: 1) Vinayak Verma - Punjab - 664, 2) Mahendra Chaudhary - Rajasthan - 657 and 3) Bharat - Uttar Pradesh - 655.
Senior Compound Men - Double 50 Mtrs: 1) Simranjot Singh - Punjab -708, 2) Rakesh Kumar - Jammu and Kashmir - 698 and 3) Rajesh Bishnoi - Rajasthan - 696.
Junior Compound Men - Double 50 Mtrs: 1) Harsh Baliyan - Uttar Pradesh - 695, 2)Satyam Vaidwan - Uttar Pradesh - 693, and 3) Harpreet Singh - Punjab - 690.
Senior Compound Women - Double 50 Mtrs: 1) Jyoti - Uttar Pradesh - 684, 2) Pragati - Delhi - 681
and 3) Ruchi - Delhi - 675.
Junior Compound Women - Double 50 Mtrs: 1) Akshita - NCOE Sonepat - 685, 2) Sakshi Choudhary - Uttar Pradesh - 680, and 3) Sujata - Punjab - 677.
The monthly competition is being conducted with the objective to enhance domestic competitions across India, so mass participation can be encouraged among the interested athletes at the nearest Zonal State.
The Khelo India Archery Competition will now be held monthly, with competitions being held for Senior and Junior participants in both Recurve and Compound events.
The Sunday's event was held to give an opportunity to the Archers of Northern Region and saw participants from Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Archer competing at SAI Sonepat expressed their happiness over the conduct of the event and they said that they are happy as they would get the opportunity every month to compete in such competitions.
Sunday's competition was also graced by the presence of Ms Lalita Sharma, Executive Director, SAI Sonepat, Mr Rajendar Singh Tomar, Hon. Treasurer Archery Association of India and Joint Secretaries of State Archery Associations of Uttarakhand, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
Both AAI and SAI are now hopeful that such events will give a big boost to develop grassroots level Archers of the country and to upgrade the performance of senior archers at the same time.