2nd Asian Grand Prix opened by the President of the Thai National Olympic Committee

2nd Asian Grand Prix opened by the President of the Thai Olympic Committee Bangkok (THA) – 16 March 2010 Over 160 archers from 22 countries are competing in the 2nd Asian Grand Prix that was opened yesterday by the President of the NOC of Thailand in the presence of the FITA President, Prof. Dr Ugur ERDENER.   The yearly 2nd Asian Grand Prix was opened on 15 March by the NOC President in the presence of the FITA President, Prof. Dr Ugur ERDENER. Dr ERDENER in his speech (photo) thanked the organiser, FITA Vice-President and 1st Vice-President of AAF for the excellent organisation. Other officials present included the Honorary AAF Vice-President Major Jamil BAHARUDIN and several AAF Council members.   As is the case since many years the Asian Grand Prix in Bangkok sees always a good mix of countries and especially is a tournament where many young Asian archers start. With the Youth Olympic Games some of the young kids participating there are also competing in Bangkok. The favorites are for sure the Korean ladies who will get strong competition from the Indian delegation. In the compound discipline we will see a though fight between Iran, India, Myanmar and Vietnam. The host country is also making good progress and could be among the surprises. In total there are 164 archers from 22 countries and 3 continents.   The competition started earlier today with the ranking round for Recurve Women and Compound Men. In the afternoon the men recurve and the women compound were in action.     Recurve Men The results were very interesting in this division where a domination from India was expected. However only CHAMPIA was able to lead the Indians to the first place with a very good result of 667 points. The surprise second is TIEN Kang from Chinese Taipei. The Iranian archer Vaziri TEYMOORLOOIE is the surprising 3rd with 656 points just ahead of former World Cup stage winner Rahul BANERJEE from India. Another surprise is the Nepalese archer PUN with an excellent 655 pts. Local archer DUANGSUWAN is 9th with 650 points, which is a very high score for this archer. Thailand is 3rd in the team qualification. This is their best ever result, which shows the good work done by the Thai Federation.     Recurve Women Korea (team from Incheon) occupies the top 4 places in the recurve women but the Indian ladies who are on a hipe since the Test Event are very close. One woman from Kazakhstan who is in 7th position is the only non Indian-Korean in the top 10. The Thai are progressing well and are approaching the 600 point mark with their best archer in 21st place with 592 points.   Compound Men Indian Chinnaraju SHRITER was close to breaking 700 points with an excellent 695 points. His team mate HANSDAH is second with 687 and Vietnamese NGUYEN Tien Chong is 3rd with 679. The host nation just misses out on the podium for the ranking round with 3 points behind.    Compound Women The Philippine archer PAZ is leading this division with a score of 681 points. With the same score but less ten’s is AUNG from Myanmar and the Thai archer TINBUA is third with 680. BAWA from India is 4th with 678, showing that the competition is very tight so far and that everything is possible.         Results Recurve Men  Recurve Women  Compound Men  Compound Women    In conclusion we can say that with the exception of the women recurve all competitions are very much open with many countries in fight for the top positions. Tomorrow archers will shoot the individual eliminations.    Tom DIELEN FITA Secretary General