In a majestic all-round performance, the Bangladeshi archers have swept the finals of all six archery team events at the 13th South Asian Games in Nepal yesterday.
The six gold medals in archery, as well as one from the women’s cricket team the same day, means Bangladesh have set a new national record for most gold medals in a single day of the SA Games. The previous best of six in one day was set during the SA Games 2010 in Dhaka, when Bangladesh won four golds in karate and one each in cricket and taekwondo on February 7.
Yesterday’s seven gold medals took Bangladesh’s gold medal tally at this edition of the games to 14, only four less than the highest number of golds the country has ever won in a single edition of the Games. The best of 18 golds was achieved in Dhaka in 2010, and there are still a couple of days left to surpass the record.
The archers are also on course to break the national record for most gold medals from a single sport at the SA Games. Ruman Shana, Ety Khatun and Co need only one more gold in the four individual event finals today to surpass the six gold medals earned by swimmers in 1985. Of the six gold medals for the swimmers in ‘85, Mosharraf Hossain had won five.
Ruman, Mohammad Tamimul Islam and Hakim Ahmed Rubel won the first gold of the day for Bangladesh, beating the Sri Lankan archers by 5-3 sets in the recurve men's team final. Ety, Mehnaz Akter and Beauty Roy then clinched the second in the women's recurve team event, beating Sri Lanka 6-0.
Subsequently, Ruman and Ety bagged the third gold, beating Bhutan by 6-2 sets in the recurve mixed team final, before the women’s cricket team earned a dramatic win over Sri Lanka to win Bangladesh’s fourth.
In the compound team finals, the men's team of Sohel Rana, Ashim Kumar Das and Ashikuzzaman Anay defeated Bhutan by 225-214 points. The women’s team of Sushmita Banik, Shoma Biswas and Shamoli Ray also emerged victorious in their final, defeating Sri Lanka by 228-215.
Sohel and Sushmita defeated Nepal in the compound mixed team final by 148-140 to win Bangladesh’s seventh gold of the day.
“I could not participate at the SAG 2016 due to injury. It was disappointing for me. I am so happy to win two golds on the first day. This is one of the best achievements of my career, although I would put winning bronze at the World Championship and qualifying for the Olympics ahead of others,” said premier archer Ruman.
One of the architects of Bangladesh’s significant improvement in archery is German coach Martin Frederick. He said: “Very proud for the archers, who did a very great job.”
The Bangladesh archers had previously never won gold at the SA Games. They won three silvers and three bronzes in 2016. India has always dominated the archery medal tally, but is not participating this time around.
“May be it is easier [without India], but our archers also scored very well here. Look what Ruman scored in the qualification round. He put up 686, and Indian archers would have had problems reaching that. The female archers were also spectacular, with very high scores,” Frederick added.
Ruman and Ety are set to fight for gold at the recurve individual finals today, while Sohel and Shoma will do the same in the compound individual finals at the same venue.