India's Olympic-bound archers will not get the opportunity to compete at the Stage 2 World Cup in Lausanne as their short-term visa applications have been rejected by the Switzerland Embassy.
India has been battling a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced many countries to ban travellers from the nation.
The Indian archers will now directly compete in the Stage 3 World Cup in Paris which will be the last Olympic qualification event for the women's recurve team. The seven-day competition will begin on June 23.
"Swiss Embassy did not allow any short term visa and we had little time for the Stage 2 World Cup (May 17 to 23). Our focus is solely on the Paris World Cup right now," Archery Association of India's secretary general Pramod Chandurkar told PTI .
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The Indian men's and women's teams have so far secured individual berths for Tokyo. The national federation may also be seeking a relaxation in the 10-day quarantine rule for its archers when they reach Paris.
"We are mulling to write to the French federation to allow the archers to travel at least for practice during the 10-day quarantine," Chandurkar added.
He further claimed that the federation would also send the compound team to Paris. The team had missed out on the Archery World Cup Stage 1 following its head coach's "false positive report".
"Compound archers are short on tournament exposure for a long time so we want to have a full strength participation in World Cup Stage 3," said Chandurkar.
In the absence of the compound team amid the coronavirus pandemic, the recurve archers came up with their best ever show at a World Cup, winning three gold medals and one bronze in Guatemala City last month.
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