Archery Association of India (AAI) which got back the Union sports ministry recognition on Wednesday, after almost eight years, for failure to conduct elections in accordance with National Sports Development Code has made plans to involve sports science for enhancing performance of archers ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Jharkhand MP from Khunti and former state chief minister, Arjun Munda, who took over as president of AAI in January this year, told The Telegraph that the federation will be soon be attaching sports psychologists, bio mechanist, video analyst and data analyst for the archery teams at the national camps.

“We will be going all out to win the elusive Olympic medal in archery in 2021 and after consultations with experts we will be involving sports science in a big way to enhance performance of our archers for the Olympics. We will be taking help of sports psychologist, bio mechanist, video analyst and data analyst for archers selected in the ongoing national camp for Olympics at Pune,” said Munda.

Arjuna awardee and Dronacharya recipient international archer Sanjeeva Singh at the selection trials in Jamshedpur on Thursday.

Sources in the Sports Authority of India (SAI) high performance unit for archery informed that the decision was taken after studying the shortcomings of the archers in the last few Olympics.

“We have seen that our archers have performed well in the world championship and even in Asian championship against even Korean and Chinese archers. However, in Olympics psychological pressure get the better of the archers at crucial junctures leading to their failure and this is where sports psychologist and sports science would be playing a role to help the archers maintain their form during the Olympics,” said a veteran international archer of repute who is currently associated with SAI high performance unit.

The AAI has also decided to keep the archer selected in the national camp for Olympics get away from competition fear.

“In Korean countries top ranked archers selected for Olympics take part in at least 10-12 major competitions annually and are not affected by competition fears. Keeping this in mind, we will be arranging a senior national competition in mid-March, 2021, which would be held in Jamshedpur. We will also be bidding for maiden Asia Cup in Archery tentatively scheduled in end-March-April and plan to hold it in Jamshedpur. This apart, our teams will compete in the three World Cups between April and June to be held in Guatemela, China and France respectively,” said Munda.

Meanwhile at the end of the three-day national selection trial for the ongoing preparatory camps for Tokyo Olympics scheduled for July 2021, Sangeeta (Haryana), Komalika Bari (Jharkhand), Ishita (Petroleum Sports Control Board) and Prachi Singh (Rajasthan) were selected in the women section while Yashdeep Bhoge (Maharashtra), Sukhchain Singh (Services), Amit Kumar (Madhya Pradesh) and Atul Verma (Services) in the men section.

These archers would join the core group of eight men and eight women archers who were selected before the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics and undergoing preparation at ASI Pune.