Bhutan’s Men Compound Archery team reached the quarterfinal round of the 20th Asian Archery Championships in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

With the combined score of 2,028, Bhutanese team came sixth out of ten countries. The team was 97 points behind the Republic of Korea that stood first in the ranking round.

In the first round of individual Men Compound category, Tandin Dorji, ranked 22nd, will play against Tsui Wai Hung of Hongkong. Tashi Peljor, ranked 27th, will play Qureshi Irfan Shahid of Pakistan, and Phub Dorji, ranked 34th, will play against Thu Rain Mhu Zin of Myanmar today.

Coach karma Tshering said that the performance of the team was better this year. “Despite players falling sick with the change in weather, we are happy that they performed better. We could have performed better than this if the players were fit.”

He said: “This year, several top Asian countries are taking part in the tournament. We are happy that we stood sixth in the ranking round. We hope to do the same in the next rounds but we have to see how the luck favors us.”

However, Bhutanese Recurve Women Team stood last. Fourteen countries took part in the Recurve Women Team category. Bhutan will play against India, ranked third in the elimination round to qualify into the quarterfinal. Men’s recurve team came 14th among 19 countries in the recurve men team category and will face China PR in the first round today.

National Archer Lam Dorji said that the team’s aim was to win the medal from the championships.

“Archery is our national game and not winning a medal from the championship would be disheartening. We have improved scores in the training. However, we are playing against experienced and toughest players in the world. The results are unpredictable but we will try our best,” said lam Dorji.

In the ranking round of recurve men category, Kinley Tshering, who ranked 34th, will play Selim Hajiyev of Turkmenistan in the first round. Nima Wangdi, ranked 49ths will play Soulivong Omanee ranked 64 from Laos, and Lam Dorji, ranked 53rd, will play Mansour Fahd Alwi ranked 60th of Saudi Arabia today. A total of 79 archers took part in the recurve men category.

Nima Wangdi said that he gave his best shot in the ranking round. “The score was my best, 643 out of 720. I am looking forward to shooting better in the elimination round.”

In the individual women recurve category, Karma and Sonam Dema qualified to the second round of the elimination round. Karma, 39th in the ranking round, will play Parmida Ghassemi ranked 26th of Iran. Sonam Dema, ranked 38th, will play against Karakoz Askarova ranked 27th of Kazakhstan today.

However, Sonam Deki, ranked 58th, in the ranking round will face Aisha Tamang ranked 55th in the first round of elimination.

Karma, who made debut Olympic appearance last year, said that she was not in her best form. “Our expectations are high but I am more confident in my team. We have younger archers with the equal potentials.”

A total of 10 archers are taking part in the 20th Asian Archery championships that will end on November 30.

Around 402 archers from 35 Asian countries are taking part in the week-long tournament.

The championship is a continental qualification tournament for the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics that will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina next year.

Nima