Archery team to be accorded grand reception

Bangladesh Archery team is all set to be given a warm reception today at Sheikh Russell Roller Skating Complex at 12 pm following their outstanding performance in Hyundai World Archery Championship in Netherlands.

 

 Archery team including famed Archer Ruman Shana who claimed the country's first-ever medal - a bronze - in the World Archery Championships will return home today morning from the Netherlands. The team is expected to arrive at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 8.40 am.

 

Bangladesh's Ruman Shana became the first archer from his country to qualify a place to the Olympic Games when he beat two-time world champion Kim Woojin in the fourth round of the 2019 Hyundai World Archery Championships in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. 

 

Shana won the bronze beating Italian archer Mauro Nespoli convincingly by 7-1 sets in recurve single men event. Nespoli is the gold medalist of 2012 Olympics in the UK. Earlier, country's ace archer Ruman conceded a 3-7 set points defeat to Malaysia's Khairul Anuar Mohamad in the semifinal on Thursday.  

 

But Bangladesh's first ace archer had confirmed his place for Tokyo 2020 beating Van Den Berg Sjef of Netherlands by 6-2 set points in the quarterfinal. These world championships are the primary qualification event for the archery competitions at Tokyo 2020. Earlier last week, Bangladesh faced top-seeded Korea in a third-round match that would award a team quota to the Games. Korea won, 6-2.

 

But Ruman still had a chance to qualify an individual place.Before the bronze medal game on Sunday, secretary general of Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) Syed Shahed Reza, Bangladesh Archery Federation (BAF) president M Moinul Islam and general secretary Kazi Razibuddin Ahmed Chapal had expressed their satisfaction over Ruman's feat of achieving qualification for Olympics. General secretary Kazi Razibuddin Ahmed Chapal said, "Ruman made us proud and we dedicate our achievements to the country."

In the fourth round, Ruman came up against Korea once again - and two-time World Archery Champion Kim Woojin. But Woojin wasn't on point and Ruman took advantage. The world number 40 upset the world number four, 6-4.

 

Ruman, who had previously captured two gold medals on foreign soil in the First Asian Archery Grand Prix in 2014 and International Archery tournament in Kyrgyzstan in 2017. He however eclipsed those performances with a bronze medal win yesterday as he had to compete against 200 archers from 92 nations including top archery nations like South Korea, Netherlands, USA, China, Chinese Taipei and India. 

 

Ruman participated in two finals this year in ISSF Islamic Solidarity Archery Championships in Dhaka and Asia Cup (Stage-1) but he had to remain happy with silver medals.His achievements were when he grabbed two more silver medals in 2nd ISSF International Solidarity Archery Championships in 2018 and 3rd South Asian Archery Championship in 2018 held in Bangladesh.