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DNA Exclusive: 800 arrows per day and lack of tournaments, Atanu Das’ archery challenge for Tokyo 2021 Olympics

Atanu Das has secured qualification for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and he has said Indian archers must play more tournaments for success on bigger stage.

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Atanu Das has said for India to gain success in Olympics, India's recurve archers need to play more tournaments in order to gauge their strengths, weaknesses and mental strength.
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Archery in India has a rich culture right from ancient times. Be it the tales of Arjuna or the skills of Rama and Lakshmana, the archery of these warriors were legendary. In modern times, when it comes to archery preparation for a major Olympics, how does an athlete prepare? Here is an insight from one of India’s upcoming stars. Six to seven months before a major event like the Tokyo Olympics 2021, the archer shoots 800 arrows a day in order to hit perfection. That is 50 arrows per hour, if you include eight hours of sleep. That is one arrow per minute. Focus, aim, shoot. It is repeated everytime and quickly. Having established a training regime of 800 arrows per day to get into the groove, he reduces it down to 600 when the Olympics is two to three months away. When there is only a week or 10 days to go, he reduces it to 200 per day.

All this is required for recurve archery success is a game of fine margins and massive disappointments. No one knows better than this 27-year-old archer from Baranagar in West Bengal From being rejected in his first trials, to missing a berth in the 2012 London Olympics to missing out on a potential medal in Rio 2016 by one point, Atanu Das has faced a roller-coaster journey in the world of recurve archery. In such a short span, Atanu Das knows the pitfalls of how hurtful a close loss can be.

“Everyone knows my journey and I do not want to repeat it again. If you look at 2010 and now in 2020, I am a totally different person as a human being and as an archer. What I was in Rio 2016, I have upgraded myself for 2021. I am not the person to complain. If we can improve it, we must improve,” Atanu Das said exclusively to DNA India.

However, heading into the now postponed 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Atanu Das is an upgraded individual when it comes out mindset and in skills, having secured bronze in the Asian Archery Championship in Bangkok in 2019. Atanu Das also settled for silver in the World Championships in s’Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. As compared to Rio 2016, Tokyo 2021 preparations are in a much better shape and that has put Atanu Das in a great state of mind.

Too few tournaments

Atanu Das said that the problem with recurve archery athletes in India is that they are thrown straight into the cauldron of the Olympics without having a chance to play in major tournaments preceding the event in order to gauge their strengths, weaknesses and mental strength. Success in tournaments before Olympics makes an archer aware of what he needs to do to win, according to Atanu Das.

“We play very few tournaments. the main point is the other countries play a lot more tournaments. I mean a large number of tournaments. In the whole year, there are tournaments every month and in 90 percent of the tournaments, many nations participate. The more you play in these tournaments, the better you will be able to gauge your weaknesses and strengths. How to improve our mental strength is also done by participating in these tournaments. For us, we hardly participate in three tournaments. If it is a World Championship year, then four. We play a maximum of four tournaments and then we go into the Olympic year. All these things matter. As compared to India, other countries play on an average 15-16 tournaments,” Atanu Das said.

There is an additional problem in recurve archery. Before every tournament, there is a selection trial. Other archery events are not subject to this selection. This creates a lot of mental uncertainty as the player can play a maximum of two events. “Before every tournament, when I talk about recurve, there is a selection trial. The rest of the archery events do not have selection trials. For the whole year, that team is fixed. They will play 7-8 tournaments. In our case, we play a maximum of two tournaments before going into another selection process. We have to give 3-4 selection trials. It creates some uncertainties,” Atanu Das said.

Atanu Das is bittersweet about the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021 but is happy that at least camps have resumed.

“When the Tokyo Olympics was postponed, at one end, I felt we were doing such a great preparation with few days remaining. It was postponed and we had so much time. This is a new thing for us. In my career or for that matter, anyone’s career, just sitting without doing anything for six months was unprecedented. Lack of proper training for six months was very tough. Now, it is not tough as we are back in training. If we can start playing tournaments, it will be beneficial for us. Directly jumping into the Tokyo Olympics will be counter-productive to us. I am happy that camps have resumed. If we start playing tournaments, we will get better,” Atanu Das said.

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