Tokyo: India’s Deepika Kumari finished ninth in the women’s individual recurve archery qualification round while the men put on a disappointing show on the opening day at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. The World No.1 Deepika scored 663 after 12 intense sets to book her Round of 32 date with Bhutan’s Karma.
The Indian, who won gold in the World Cup Stage I at the Guatemala City few months ago, started on a steady note finishing fourth at the end of the first half. However, she failed to keep on the momentum and hit seven on her last to slip to ninth.
Draw 👇 for 1st round of the Men's Individual Recurve Archery event, to be held from 27 to 29 July
Pravin Jadhav 🇮🇳 vs Galsan Bazarzhapov (ROC)
Atanu Das 🇮🇳 vs Deng Yu-Cheng (TPE)
Tarundeep Rai 🇮🇳 vs Oleksii Hunbin (UKR)Send in your wishes for #TeamIndia with #Cheer4India
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) July 23, 2021
South Korean Archers, An San (680), Jang Minhee (677) and Chaeyoung Kang (675) took the first three spots respectively. An San broke the Games record previously held by Lina Herasymenko of Ukraine (673).
Meanwhile, the men’s trio of Atanu Das (653), Tarundeep Rai (652) and Pravin Jadav (656) all finished below 30th in the individual ranking round. Das started on a strong note finishing fourth with four 10s at the end of the first set but slowly went down as the day event progressed.
Jadhav overtook Das in the second half while Rai failed to climb ranks. While Jadav finishes at 31st, while Das and Rai 35th and 37th places respectively. South Korea’s Je Deok Kim (688) topped the list followed by world record holder Ellison Brady (682) of the USA. Korea’s Jinhyek Oh and Kim Woojin scored 681 and 678 respectively while Japan’s Hiroki Muto scored 678.
India🇮🇳 begins its #Tokyo2020 journey with @ImDeepikaK finishing 9th with a score of 663 in the Women’s recurve archery ranking round.
South Korea’s 🇰🇷 An San created a new #Olympic record with a score of 680.
Send in your wishes for #TeamIndia with #Cheer4India pic.twitter.com/0QKAImz6YI
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) July 23, 2021
The below-par show by the Indians means the Men in Blue finished ninth among 29 teams for the mixed team event and will face Chinese Taipei in the round of 16. If the mixed team of Jadav and Deepika manage to beat Chinese Taipei on July 24, they will likely take on Korea in the quarterfinal.
In the men’s team rankings, India was in the ninth spot as well and have been drawn to face Kazakhstan in the Round of 16 on July 26. A win in the pre-quarterfinals will see them pitted against the Koreans next.
