After nearly two years of preparation, Bhutan’s three-member recurve archery team is ready to take on the Asian Games in Japan. With the ranking or elimination round set for this Saturday, the archers are now fine-tuning their final preparations and looking to turn their training into performance on the international stage.
For Bhutan’s recurve archers, preparation for the Asian Games began in 2024.
The team will compete in the individual and team events, with the ranking round scheduled for Saturday.
Among them is 35-year-old Kinley Tshering from Paro. He joined Bhutan’s national recurve team in 2013 and has represented the country at more than 23 international competitions.
Kinley has built a strong record on the international stage. He won silver in the team and mixed team events at the inaugural International Solidarity Archery Championship in Bangladesh in 2017.
At the 2019 South Asian Games in Nepal, he won silver in the individual and mixed team events and bronze in the team event.
He also won individual gold in the foreign category at the 2025 Gyeyang Open in South Korea. In 2026, he secured gold in the men’s recurve event at the WAA President’s Challenge Cup and Joint Training Programme in Bangladesh.
“We have trained well. Our main focus is on the individual event, but we are putting more emphasis on the team event. We will give our best and compete hard, keeping in mind everything we have learned during our preparation. We hope to put what we have achieved through our training into practice during the competition.”
At 22, Sonam Penjor from Lhuntse is one of the younger members of the team.
Sonam started archery in 2018 and has represented Bhutan in around 10 international competitions, including the 2024 Paris Olympic Final Qualification Tournament and the Asian Archery Championships.
He has a personal best of 658 points in the 72-arrow ranking round. He also finished third in the individual event at the 2025 Gyeyang Open in South Korea.
This year, Sonam finished third in the individual recurve event and helped his team secure second place at the Bhutan Grand Prix-III.
“Our team has been training hard and preparing as if we were already competing on the international stage. I hope we can make our country proud. We are grateful for the support we have received from the people so far, and I hope they will continue to support us. I will give my best and work hard to make the nation proud.”
The third member is 31-year-old Lam Dorji from Samdrup Jongkhar.
A national team member since 2013, Lam has represented Bhutan internationally since 2015 and has competed in more than 20 international tournaments.
He reached the Olympic stage at Paris 2024, finishing 28th among 64 archers in the individual ranking round with 663 points.
His personal best is 664, recorded at the 2023 Asian Archery Championships in Bangkok. He also won bronze in the men’s recurve team event at the 2019 South Asian Games.
“My main objective or focus would basically be on the diet. Especially, diet controls almost 90 per cent of an athlete. Apart from that, I am focusing more on shooting technique, as well as preparing the athletes mentally.”
The team has been training under head coach Yeshi Dema, with sessions running from 9 AM to 5 PM from Monday to Friday and half-day sessions on Saturdays.
They also completed a 24-day closed training camp in Punakha, followed by a week-long training programme in Bangladesh.
The long preparation has focused on improving consistency, strengthening teamwork and sharpening their scores ahead of the competition.
“Our main focus was to see how well they could perform under pressure. We organised competition simulations to recreate the actual competition environment and assess how they handled pressure. We also focused on weather adaptation. Since the conditions in Japan can be hot and rainy, we included training sessions in similar conditions to help them adapt and perform comfortably in different weather,” added the coach.
After nearly two years of preparation, the three archers are now set to put their hard work and training to the test on the Asian Games stage.
Karma Wangdi
Edited by Sonam Pem
