Archer Abdur Rahman Alif made it to the final for the first time at the senior level when the 19-year-old archer from Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protistan (BKSP) advanced to the Recurve Individual final of Asia Cup Archery stage-2 beating beat Chinese Taipei's Pin-An Chen 6-4 in semifinal in Singapore yesterday.

Alif had before represented Bangladesh in the World Cups, Asian Archery Championships and Asian Grand Prix tournaments but never won an individual medal though the BKSP student was a silver triumphing member of Bangladesh recurve team in Asian Grand Prix twice in 2022 and 2024 respectively.

Alif, a 12-grade student of BKSP, however played the recurve individual final of Asian Archery U-21 Youth Championships in Chinese Taipei in September last but he had to content with a silver medal suffering defeat at the hands of Li-Cheng Huang.

Before beating 22nd-ranked Chen in the semifinal, the lad from Pabna also overcame the hurdles of China's 26th-ranked Alin in 6-2, 10th-ranked Malaysian Muhammad Syafiq Busthamin in 6-4 and 2nd-ranked Tai-Yen Liu of Chinese Taipei.

By confirming the final against Miyata Gakuto of China on Friday, Alif also confirmed his first-ever individual medal at the senior level as the lanky archer, who once climbed up 95th in world archery ranking, once lost his way in the national team before BKSP brought him back to the tract.

When Alif put his brilliant performance to make sure the final berth despite the absence of top archers like Hakim Ahmed Rubel and Ruman Sana who migrated to USA, the country's lone sports educational institute – BKSP – is mulling to take an ambitious project with Alif and Sagor Islam, who has already played 2024 Paris Olympic Games in his own merit.

In a view-exchange meeting with the high ups of 21 disciplines BKSP also trains up, BKSP's Director General Brigadier General Munirul Islam expressed his desire to take care of national archers Alif and Sagor upto 2028 with a target to win medal in Olympic Games.

"Among new disciplines, the successes are coming from archery and we want to gamble with two archers for 2028 Archers by providing them a long-term training if we get a few sponsors for them," said Islam. "I believe if we can provide them round the year training through what the local and foreign coaches BKSP has, we believe it is not impossible to win a medal in Olympics by them because they have that level of standard."

The BKSP DG also urges the corporate houses like telecoms, banks, insurances and other companies to come forward to provide BKSP only Tk 26 lakh for next four years to realise the dream of winning a medal in Olympics.

"Both of them are going to sit in HSC exam and BKPS can't hold them after they pass the examination, So we are seeking sponsors for both to keep them at the BKSP because we plan to provide them Tk 30k salary each along with some facilities and we need a total of Tk 26 lakh," said Islam adding that BKSP will bear all expenditure of accommodation, food, training, primary treatment, local and foreign coaches and transports.

Meanwhile, both Alif and Sagor have been in the national archery team under the guidance of German coach Martin Fredrick, who guided archers Ruman Sana and Sagor to make them qualify directly for the 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games respectively.



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