Archery: Team Bhutan won three silver and a bronze medal at the International Solidarity Archery Championship held in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Kinley Tshering and Karma bagged silver medal in the mixed recurve category after suffering a defeat against Bangladesh yesterday. The duo defeated Iraq in the semi-finals to compete for the gold medal.

In the recurve men’s category, Kinley Tshering, Lam Dorji and Nima Wangdi defeated Sudan to reach the finals. The three archers, however, couldn’t bag the gold after suffering a defeat at the hands of the host country Bangladesh yesterday.

In the individual recurve category, Nima Wangdi won silver. He was defeated in the finals by an archer from Saudi Arabia. Lam Dorji came third in the same category to bag the bronze medal by defeating the Bangladeshi number one.

The competition was a world-ranking event for archers across the globe, endorsed by the international federation for sports of archery, the World Archery Federation and the World Archery Asia, formerly know as the Asian Archery Federation.

The Bhutanese men were ranked top during the qualification round. During the knockouts, most of the archers were denied the gold.     However, the achievements come as one of the biggest feats of the Bhutan Archery Federation (BAF) on the international stage.

The Bhutanese head coach, Tashi Tshering, thanked the president, general secretary and the staffs of the federation for helping the archers achieve the accomplishments.

“We are greatly encouraged by the performance by the team, considering that the  competing teams were from 17 other countries with much greater population and bigger the talent pool than ours and from federations that commands better resources,” said BAF general secretary, Tsewang Rinchen.

He added that the success was possible because of the leadership of the federation’s president, Ugyen Rinzin, and under the patronage of HRH Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck, the president of Bhutan Olympic Committee.

“It was also because of the hard work the BAF faculty had put in and from the athletes,” he said. “Encouraged by such results, we will strive to get better results for the country.”

Younten Tshedup