OGQ to support recurve archers Laxmirani, Champia

MUMBAI: Olympic Gold Quest, the not for profit organisation founded by sports legends Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone, announced today that it will be supporting recurve archers Laxmirani Majhi and Olympian Mangal Champia in the lead up to next year's Rio Olympics.

Laxmirani, 26, is an experienced archer who is representing the country in international tournaments since 2004 and has won many medals at continental championships. She was part of the gold medal winning recurve women's team at the Archery World Cup stage 4 in Poland last year.

Laxmirani would represent India at the World Championships scheduled from July 26 to August 2 at Copenhagen, Denmark, which is the first qualifying tournament for the 2016 Olympics.

31-year-old Champia is an experienced archer who has won many World Cup medals as part of the recurve men's team. He represented India at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the recurve individual event.

Champia is also part of the Indian team for the World Championships to be held in Copenhagen.

The recurve men's event at Copenhagen alone will feature 229 archers contesting just three medals, making it one of the toughest podiums to climb in international sport, according to worldarchery.org.

It also marks the first time a single competition category has broken the 200-athlete mark at a World Archery event.

"Laxmirani and Mangal are both very experienced and talented recurve archers. OGQ will be supporting both of them with top quality archery equipment, physiotherapy and mental training. This is a very important phase of Olympic qualification and they deserve all the support possible," said OGQ's CEO, Viren Rasquinha.