Paris: Indian archer Deepika Kumari reclaimed the top position in the women’s recurve world rankings following her triple gold medal show at the World Cup Stage III. With 263.7 points, Deepika Kumari climbed two places and reclaimed the summit spot for the first time since 2012.
France’s Lisa Barbelin (225.5 points) and Korea’s Kang Chae Young (208 points) are ranked second and third, respectively. After an individual gold medal show at the World Cup Stage I in Guatemala City, Deepika won the top prizes in the individual event and helped the women’s recurve and mixed teams to clinch gold.
Magnificent performance Deepika! You deserve all the success & recognition.
Your performance at #ArcheryWorldCup in Paris is just a glimpse of what the world shall see at the @Olympics.
Proud of your achievement & wishing you all the very best for the #TokyoOlympics. pic.twitter.com/eexF4snzel
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) June 28, 2021
The current year has been brilliant so far for Deepika and her World No.1 status going into the Tokyo Olympics would certainly be big boost for her. The two-time Olympian returned empty-handed from London 2012 and Rio 2016 but aimed to open her Olympic medal account at Tokyo 2020.
“Our country, in archery… it doesn’t have any Olympic medals. It’s very important to win Olympic medals, so it’s very important to me,” Deepika told World Archery. Ankita Bhakat and Komalika Bari, Deepika Kumari’s Indian women’s recurve team colleagues, were ranked 34th and 94th, respectively.
In the men’s recurve archery rankings, Deepika’s husband Atanu Das is the best-ranked Indian at ninth place. Atanu’s teammates in the men’s division, Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai occupy the 41st and 58th spots, respectively.
Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav will be India’s archery contingent at Tokyo.
