Paris. Riding on the brilliant performances of in-form Dheeraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat, India made a bright start to their campaign at the Paris Olympics as the archers made direct entry into the quarter-finals of the men’s and women’s categories. The Indian men’s team finished third and the women’s team fourth in the ranking round.
Due to the excellent performance of Dheeraj and Ankita, who are playing their first Olympics, India remained in the top four, which gave them a good draw in the knockouts. The top four teams directly qualify for the quarter-finals, while the teams ranked fifth to 12th play in the last 16. The Indian men’s team has been seeded third, which means that they will not be in Korea’s pool in the next round. Now both the Indian teams have to register two more wins to get an Olympic medal.
World Cup bronze medallist Dheeraj finished fourth in the individual round. Dheeraj and Ankita have been seeded fifth in the mixed team category in the last 16. The Indian mixed team scored 1347 points. In the individual category, Tarundeep Roy finished 14th and Praveen Jadhav finished 39th. Korea’s Woojin Kim and Jae Deok Kim finished first and second while Germany’s Florian Unruh finished third.
Earlier, debutant Ankita surpassed veteran Deepika Kumari to finish a best-ever 11th among Indians in the women’s individual recurve qualification as India finished fourth and qualified for the quarterfinals of the team event.
Ankita (26 years) was the best ranked Indian woman archer with 666 points, followed by Bhajan Kaur (22nd) with 559 points and Deepika Kumari (23rd) with 658 points. In the team event, India finished fourth with 1983 points, with South Korea topping the list with 2046 points. China was the runner-up while Mexico finished third. India will face the winner of the match between France and Netherlands in the quarter-finals.
If the Indian women’s team crosses the quarterfinal hurdle, it may have to face the strong Korean team in the semifinals. The Korean team has been undefeated in the Olympics, winning its ninth consecutive medal in Tokyo three years ago. In the individual category, Korea’s Lim Sihyeon topped the table with a world record score of 694 while her compatriot Suhyeon Nam finished second with 688 points. China’s Yang Xiaolei finished third with 673 points. Deepika will not play in the mixed team event for the first time as Ankita topped the Indians.