The Archery World Cup Stage 1, beginning from Wednesday in Shanghai, was to be Madhu Vaidwan’s first big competition. After all only recently was she instrumental along side Nomulu Lavanya in knocking out the top women recurve archers — Deepika Kumari, L Bombayla Devi and Dola Banerjee — from the senior team. But delay in acquiring a passport has cost her dearly. She has been left behind after the Chinese embassy refused to issue her visa on the grounds that she did not possess a visa-support letter from the World Cup organisers. The 17-year-old Baghpat girl had only been issued the passport on last Thursday afternoon. By the time she reached the Chinese Embassy on Thursday it had closed for the day. She was told to come again on Friday, but since she did not possess the additional letter from the organisers, she was refused avisa and she did not board the flight. “Madhu could not go because her passport did not come in time,” Archer y Association of India (AAI) secretary general Anil Kamineni said. . “What I understand is that the reason for the denial was the fact that when we sent her name to the organisers it did not mention her passport details as she did not possess one at that time. But we still have three recurve archers for team competitions in fray,” Kamineni added. As per the protocol, as soon as the squad is announced, all the details, including that of the passports of team members, coaches are forwarded to the organisers, who then issue a visa-support letter to the participants. Now that she has missed the flight, Madhu will have to wait for the next National Ranking Tournament to make another push for the inclusion in the team. After the conclusion of the 2nd TATA National Ranking Tournament that was held in New Delhi early this month, the AAI had announced that they will be sending two different teams for the first two World Cups. While Madhu, Lavanya, Laxmi Rani Majhi and V Praneetha were selected for the Shanghai World Cup, L Bombayala Devi, Reena Kumari, Deepika Kumari and Rimil Buriuly are to take part in Medellin World Cup, Colombia, that will be held from May 13-18.
