Archery coach dies in road accident

HYDERABAD - Indian archery coach Ch. Lenin was killed and two Delhi Commonwealth Games silver medallists were injured in a road accident near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh early Sunday.

International archer-turned-coach Lenin, Ritul Chatterjee and Chittibomma Jignesh were returning to Vijayawada after attending a felicitation function in Hyderabad when the SUV they were travelling in toppled after hitting a road divider.

Police said the accident took place when Lenin, who was driving the Scorpio, tried to avoid a collision with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction and in the process hit the divider.

Lenin, 25, died on the spot while Ritul and Jignesh suffered minor injuries. They were shifted to a hospital in Vijayawada.

The accident took place at Ibrahimpatnam near Vijayawada, about 300 km from here.

“The accident happened at 2 a.m. on National Highway 5. We were coming back from the ceremony organised by Chief Minister K. Rosaiah. My son Lenin was driving and we were almost home until our car collided with an autorickshaw coming from the opposite side. The auto driver violated the rules and was driving on the wrong lane,” Cherukuri Satyanarayana, Lenin’s father and organising secretary of Andhra Pradesh Archery Association, told IANS.

Lenin, who earlier represented India in compound archery, was one of the coaches of the Commonwealth Games medal winning men’s and women’s team.

“It is a tragic incident. He was a very good human being. I interacted with him a lot of times. I am glad that Jignesh and Ritul are safe,” Paresh Nath Mukherjee, secretary general of the Archery Association of India, told IANS.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan and Chief Minister K. Rosaiah had felicitated all the CWG medal winners and their coaches at the felicitation function they attended here Saturday night.

Lenin, a silver medallist in the team (compound) event at Asian Grand Prix Archery Tournament in 2005, was the personal coach of Ritul, Jignesh and other upcoming archers.

Ritul and Jignesh combined with seasoned archer Chinna Raju Srither to win silver in the men’s compound category segment at the Delhi Commonwealth Games.