Funding is the main issue, says Archery Coach Sawaiyan Manjhi

Funding is the main issue, says Archery Coach Sawaiyan Manjhi

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Mentioning the fact that the government does not provide funds to a non-recognised federation, Archery coach Sawaiyan Manjhi stated that their major issue was lack of funds. As the Archery Association of India (AAI) is not a recognised organization, they were not given funds for foreign trainings.

On Tuesday, Sawaiyan Manjhi stated that they should have been able to practice in foreign conditions of Indonesia for almost a month, but the lack of a recognised federation removed any hopes of fundings from the government and the team could not be trained accordingly.

“The government does not provide funds to a de-recognised body. Funding is the main issue. We should have come here last year at the same time and train here for at least a month then we would have been in a better frame of mind,” Manjhi told PTI.

Sonepat became the training ground for Indian compound archers, while the recurve archers were training in Jamshedpur and Pune. This prevented the archery squad from getting a hang of conditions, they were going to experience in Jakarta/Palembang.

Manjhi mentioned that the performance exhibited by the archers in the Asian Games Incheon edition was because the squad had been training in the designated city for almost a month ahead of the event. With Abhishek Verma bringing a silver and Trisha Deb clinching a bronze in the individual compound events, the games were a huge success for Indian Archers.

The men's compound went as far as to leave Korea behind to grab the lead position, while the women's team brought home a bronze.

“No sponsor is coming forward to support archers. There are few people like OGQ, who help but others are not coming because the Federation is de-recognised,” Manjhi said.

“There are huge financial issues. Though SAI [Sports Authority of India] has helped athletes by giving money from TOPS [Target Olympic Podium Scheme] but there are few things which only the Federation can do,” he added.

The De-recognition of AAI took place in December 2012 by the government, when the federation failed to follow the Sports Code. SY Quraishi, former chief election commissioner was appointed by the Delhi High Court to further sort out the matters, following the decision.

“Quraishi had called for elections and nominations were ready to be filed but a faction approached Supreme Court which ordered that new constitution be framed and elections be conducted as per the new constitution,” a Federation official said.

Acting as the compound coach for India, Jiwanjot Singh Teja stated it was unfair to have the archers suffer because of the administrative disruptions. The government, however, arranged for the equipments required by the players in the Asian Games.

“Archers, who are not financially well off, are suffering. They used to get concession of 75 per cent from Railways for travel to competitions and training but now it has been stopped because the body is de-recognised,” Teja said.

“We had asked the government to provide two sets to archers for the Asian Games. They helped in a big way by giving two sets to TOPS archers and one set each to others. The archer has to shoot with only six arrows but they should have spare in case any arrow suffers damage,” he added.

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