Olympic Gold Quest, founded by badminton ace Prakash Padukone and billiards great Geet Sethi, has decided to support the training and preparation of top Indian archers Deepika Kumari and Jayanta Talukdar till the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The 18-year-old Ranchi-born Deepika, an individual gold medal winner in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and Talukdar - a two-time team bronze winner in the last two Asian Games, have joined fellow-archers Rahul Banerjee and Tarundeep Rai in his organisation's fold, said OGQ CEO Viren Rasquinha today.
"The idea is to support them in international exposure through competitions, world class equipment and mental and physical training to help them aim higher," said Rasquinha.
"They are both world class archers and great medal prospects in the 2016 Rio Games and it is essential we put concrete plans in place for them right away," said the former India hockey captain.
"I am very happy to get the support of OGQ. After the London Olympics I have realised that my training needs to be more professional and systematic," said Deepika who ended up a disappointing eighth in the 2012 Games.
"I know that OGQ can make a significant impact in this regard along with the support that I am getting from Tata Steel," said world no. 3 Deepika who had been declared the Tata Steel Sports Person of the year 2013.
Talukdar, also from Tata Steel, echoed her views and said he has seen how OGQ, which also has other sports persons like Leander Paes, Vishwanathan Anand and former table tennis champion Niraj Bajaj on its Board of Directors, has taken care of the needs of fellow-archers Banerjee and Rai.
"I am confident that the support from OGQ and Tata Steel will enable us to mount a serious challenge for Olympic medals," added the 28-year-old archer and product of the Tata Archery Academy.
"There was a bit of pressure, no doubt. It was my first experience (Olympics). It was also very windy and tried to adjust, but the arrows were going to one place only, the Tata Archery Academy product said.
"There was no time for preparation, to get adjusted to those conditions. If we had got more time we would have trained better," she added.
Deepika, who has been brought under its wings by the non-profit sports foundation Olympic Gold Quest along with Talukdar, was happy that the mental training part would be taken care of now.
"A psychologist with the team will be helpful as it is as much a mental game as a physical one now. Now that OGQ has come (on board), this problem should not be there. My association with them will help me a lot in mental preparation and in training as they have a physiotherapist too," she said.
The Jharkhand youngster also gave a thumbs up to chief coach Lim Chae Woong and said the Korean communicated well to all the archers in English.
"We have a wonderful understanding with him and he is a very experienced coach. If he feels we are unable to understand what he tells us to do he switches to Korean language to scold us. He speaks in English to us otherwise. He is able to communicate well to us.
According to Deepika, the change of rules by world archery body FITA has made it a very open competition.
"Rules in archery have been made more interesting for the spectators by the authorities. The rules have been amended in such a manner that the top players can be beaten by any one else in the world. Earlier it could be said... yes this person would surely win... which is not the case now," she explained.