Asian Games: Indian archers start their campaign tomorrow

Indian archers, who stole the country's attention with their exploits in the Commowealth Games last month, commence their campaign in the Asian Games tomorrow against a strong field that includes South Korea, who would be aiming for their eighth consecutive gold medal.

The competition, that sees 114 archers vying for gold medals in the men's and women's individual and team events with Olympic champion and world no 1 IM Donghyun of Korea being the favourite in his group.

India's campaign would be spearheaded by Rahul Banerjee in the men's section and his sister Dola Banerjee and young Jamshedpur girl Deepika Kumari in the women's category.

The other Indian men archers seen in action would be Mangal Singh Champia, Tarundeep Rai and Jayanta Talukdar.

Along with Korea and India, Chinese Taipei, led by veterans Chen Szu Yuan and Kuo Cheng Wei -- both silver medalists in Doha four years ago -- would be strong contenders.

World no 1 Joo Hyunjung of Korea is the front runner to take the gold in the women's competition while she would be supported in the team event by no 2 Yun Okhee, the Doha silver winner.

However, the Korean duo can expect strong challenge from 2002 Busan gold medalist Yuan Shu Chi of Taipei, who later lost her form and missed out a gold in Doha but is on a comeback trail.

China's hopes rest on 32-year-old Yang Jianping, the oldest competitor in the women's event.

Each archer would shoot 144 arrows over four distances -90m, 70m, 50m and 30m for men and 70, 60, 50 and 30m for women - with 36 arrows fired for each distance in the competition.