The failure of Indian recurve archers – Deepika Kumari, Tarundeep Roy and Rahul Banerjee etc – to make a mark in Incheon Asian Games or in London Olympics was due to their lack of mental toughness, if Archery Association of India (AAI) is to be believed.
This is the reason why AAI has engaged in talks with some of the best mental trainers in Korea and the US. The main aim of the AAI is to equip Indian archers well for all the major international competitions. AAI secretary Anil Kamineni has said that "a new mental trainer will be with the Indian archers within a month or so".
This, he felt, was necessary to prepare Indian archers for the big events. "We've been doing well at all the international competitions by beating all big teams like Korea, China and Italy. But when it comes to winning a medal at the Olympics or Asian Games, our archers seem to be crumbling under pressure. This was because of lack of mental toughness and had to be taken care of in the future," said Kamineni.
Star recurve archer Deepika Kumari, too, admitted during the course of the Asian Games that she needed to tap her own resources of focus if she wanted to end this slump. From world No. 2 last year, she has slipped beyond No. 10 in recent times.
It is not that Kumari has not been doing well. The Ranchi girl not only helped her team clinch team gold at the World Cup Stage IV in Poland but also bagged individual and mixed bronze in August. But her performances in Incheon or for that matter in London two years back were much below her potential.
"May be concentration has something to do with it. I've certainly been having some problem in getting good results of late," Kumari had said. "There can't be any quick fix solutions. And, I just need to focus more on my practice and hope that results will follow."
It must be mentioned here that Indian compound archers were nowhere in comparison to their recurve archers but Incheon had changed the scenario completely.
The men's trio of Rajat Chauhan, Sandeep Kumar and Abhishek Verma worked wonderfully well to win India their first ever compound event team gold before Abhishek picked up the individual silver. The women trio also won two bronze in Asian Games to emerge from the shadow of the recurve archers.
This was the result of timely action on the part of AAI to send compound archers to Salt Lake City in the US to train under top coach and mental trainer De Wilde before the Asiad.
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