Nat'l Ranking Archery tournament begins on Friday in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Top Indian archers like Abhishek Verma, Atanu Das and Vennam Jyothi Surekha will be seen in action in the National Ranking Tournament which begins at the DDA Yamuna Sports Complex here on Friday.

The preliminary elimination rounds of the event will be held on Friday and the final rounds of the compound and recurve events will be staged on Saturday and Sunday.

The NTPC National Ranking Archery Tournament, being organised by the Delhi Archery Association under the aegis of the Archery Association of India (AAI), will feature senior, junior and sub-junior (cadet) recurve and compound competitions for both men and women.

Only 32 best senior, junior and sub-junior archers of the season, eight in each of the four categories (recurve men, recurve women, compound men and compound women) -- totalling 96 -- got selected for the finals, after taking into account their performances in the four legs of the domestic circuit held from January to October last year in Hyderabad, Saraikela (Jharkhand), Amaravati (Maharashtra) and Narmadapuram (Madhya Pradesh).

The total prize purse of the tournament will be Rs 50 lakhs, double the amount given in the last edition, also held here in 2014, the AAI said in a release.

A total cash incentive of Rs 40 lakhs has already been distributed at the rate of Rs 10 lakh each in the four ranking tournaments, it added. The AAI also said that it's organising a day-night event under floodlights for the first time.

Four archers -- Aditi Gopichand Swamy, Preneet Kaur, Bhajan Kaur and Kushal Dalal -- are competing in all three age groups -- senior, junior and sub-junior.