Bows ready, arrows nocked

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This year will be one big season for the students in the archery academy at Wayanad as six students from the academy will participate in the National Archery championship for the first time after the archery academies were established in the state.

An year ago, two archery academies were constituted by Kerala Sports Council in the State, one in Wayanad and another in Idukky.

This year, six students from the Wayanad academy have been selected for the National Archery Championship. K.R. Sreejith, P. Anish Babu, T.G. Sajan, K.B. Jishnu, B. Linitha and Akshaya Das are the ones participating in the national championship as part of the state team.

“Students are excited about the selection to the state team. This will give them more exposure,” said C.R. Balakrishnan, the trainer in the academy. The academy has a strength of 12 girls and 11 boys.

Among them, 10 students took part in the state championship held recently and six of the students got selected to national championship. The students are contesting in national junior boys recurve, junior boys Indian round, junior and sub junior girls Indian round categories.

Though the academy lacks proper training equipment, the players are in high spirits. “We are really happy to know that we are the first players representing the academy to take part in the nationals. We have already begun the training,” says K.B. Jishnu.

His interest to archery started after participating in a summer camp held in Kozhikode.

“One of the major problem we are facing the lack of equipment. Only four sets of bow and arrow were allotted by the state government. The students had to spend their own money to get the equipment for training,” says Balakrishnan.

A recurve set costs around Rs 1 lakh and the bow and arrow used for Indian round costs around Rs 6,000,¨ he says. Besides, the bow and arrow must be manufactured according to the body size of the player to get the optimum result, he explained.

The archery sports hostel of the academy is functioning in a rented building in Pulpally in Wayanad. Though eight acres have been acquired to build a hostel and related facilities, no work has started yet.
“We are waiting for the order from the government to start the academy on the land allotted for us.

“The students have been enrolled at Vijaya Higher Secondary School and we are using their ground for training purposes,” he said. In spite of the the lack of proper training facilities, the players train for about five hours a day. “Our aim is to showcase a good performance,” Balakrishnan said.

The players from Wayanad and Kannur are currently training in the academy.