Sportsmanship wanting in archery

It’s encouraging to see our national sport, archery, dominating the sporting scene in the country. Archery tournaments are organised across the country throughout the year. But there is a lot of worrying trends affecting the professionalism of the popular sport.

Alcohol in many forms is freely consumed by players in any archery tournament at any level. This culture of drinking during archery matches is not only dangerous, but also unprofessional.

Bhutan in December 2010 adopted the International Convention Against Doping in Sport. If performance-enhancing substances have no place in any sport, culturally free-flowing alcoholic drinks during Bhutanese archery matches are anything but permissible. The world anti-doping agency prohibits alcohol from many sports, including archery. Consumption of any alcoholic drink during an archery match is considered doping. Therefore, any alcoholic drink – wine, whiskey, beer, ara, bangchhang, singchhang – should be prohibited from all archery matches. Associating alcoholic drinks in sports with culture is an excuse to drink.

Bhutan has adopted many international conventions over the years. We must remember that it is important to adopt a few and duly honour them, not adopt too many only to be dishonoured.

Today, our traditional archery has become more risky because of powerful equipment used in it. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to keep alcoholic drinks out of a risky sport. It’s time we clean the traditional sport of some dangerous cultural elements.

The popularity of archery is not matched by sportsmanship and professionalism. Although big archery tournament organisers like Yangphel have some regulations in place, they are mostly rudimentary.

Bhutan Archery Federation, in the meantime, has done little to curb, if not ban, the use of alcoholic drinks in archery. Earlier, the federation had said that it was difficult to keep alcohol out of the sport for traditional and cultural reasons. That’s surprising because we don’t see any cultural value in the practice of drinking during archery tournaments. Culture is dynamic and it needs to evolve with time.

As Bhutan increasingly appears on the international sporting stage, sportsmanship and professionalism should be emphasised. And it should start from the national sport. Our benchmark in sports should be set in archery.