- Sunday, September 08, 2024
Indian archers can hope for multiple medals following Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat’s exploits in the qualifiers
By: Shajil Kumar
BOLSTERED by their best-ever show in the ranking rounds, Indian archers will look to end a 36-year-long wait for an Olympic medal with yet another good show in the medal rounds that will get underway with the women’s finals here on Sunday.
Indian archery fraternity can hope for multiple medals from the historic Les Invalides arena following Dhiraj Bommadevara (seeded fourth) and Ankita Bhakat’s (11th) exploits in the qualifiers.
For the first time after 12 years, India have a full six-member contingent as they vie for medals in all the five categories – mixed team, men’s and women’s team, and individual events.
Having seeded straight to the quarters, the men’s and women’s teams need two wins to land a historic first Olympic medal in archery since their debut in the 1988 Seoul Games.
India, who have never crossed the quarterfinal hurdles in the Olympics, mostly falling to archery powerhouse South Korea, will avoid their ‘nemesis’ first up.
While the men’s team can avoid them till the gold medal clash, the women’s may head into Korea in the semifinals.
India will take on the winners of France and the Netherlands in women’s team quarterfinals on Sunday.
Shooting in front of home support, France, who were ranked fifth in the qualifiers, will be the overwhelming favourites to be India’s quarterfinal opponents.
All eyes would be on the trio of Ankita Bhakat, Bhajan Kaur and Deepika Kumari and how they soak in the pressure in front of a partisan crowd.
The Indian women’s team seemed to be ahead of the French rivals, having shot 1983 with an average of 9.18 compared to the hosts’ 1972 (at 9.13).
France’s Lisa Barbelin, Amelie Cordeau and Caroline Lopez are also familiar rivals for the Indians, having defeated them 3-2 in a friendly match at their preparatory camp in Jaux, 80kms north of Paris.
It was in Paris at the World Cup Stage 3 in 2021, the Indian women’s team had defeated France in the semifinal en route to winning a gold.
Ankita and Deepika were part of the gold medal-winning Indian team with Bhajan replacing Komalika Bari here and they may take inspiration from that match three years ago.
India’s most experienced woman archer Deepika, the former world No 1, had her worst ranking round from four Olympics, finishing lowly 23rd.
She struggled to get her 10s, managing just 28 perfect scores from 72 arrows and landed her arrows in the five and six rings on two occasions.
Deepika will once again play the role of a finisher and it will all boil down to how she brings her best in the crunch moment.
Men’s team fancied
Games debutant Dhiraj’s red-hot form and the combined five-Olympics appearance of Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav, who was in Tokyo too, makes the Indian men’s team the most fancied to win a medal. The men’s finals is scheduled on Monday.
In Shanghai World Cup, they had achieved a historical feat of upsetting the Koreans for the first time to win a gold.
Ranked third in the qualification round, India may face Turkey in the quarterfinals. The two teams have not met in the recent past and the challenge would be to conquer an unfamiliar opposition.
But for that to happen, sixth seeds Turkey, who boasts of reigning Olympic champion Mete Gazoz, will have to first need to get past 11th ranked Colombia in the pre-quarters.
The qualification round average arrow score for the men’s team is an impressive 9.32 — only Korea (9.49) and France (9.38) scored higher than them.
As far as Turkey are concerned they have not done well as a team and India should sail past them without much fuss.
France, who will take on the winners of Italy and Kazakhstan, the two lowly-ranked teams, are likely to be India’s semifinal opposition if they manage to overcome Turkey.
India are seeded fifth as a mixed team where Ankita will partner Dhiraj and they will face an easy opening round against Indonesia who are seeded a lowly 12th.
They are in the same pool with China and Korea, who might be their potential quarterfinal and semifinal opponents respectively, should they progress.
Mixed team finals are slated on August 2.
Panwar moves to repechages
India’s lone rower in Paris Olympics, Balraj Panwar moved to the repechages after finishing fourth in heat 1 of the men’s singles scull competition here on Saturday.
The 25-year-old Panwar came up with a time of 7:07.11 to finish behind New Zealand’s Thomas Mackintosh (6:55.92), Stefanos Ntouskos (7:01.79) and Abdelkhalek Elbanna (7:05.06).
The top three in each heat qualifies for the quarterfinals.
In repechages, Panwar will have a second chance to advance to the semifinals or finals.
Panwar had finished 4th at the 2022 Asian Games in China, and claimed a bronze medal at the Asian and Oceanian Olympic Qualification Regatta in Korea.
Shooters disappoint
Sarabjot Singh and Arjun Singh Cheema sparkled in patches but could not make the men’s 10m air pistol final after both the air rifle mixed teams also fell by the wayside during qualification in a disappointing start for Indian shooters in the Olympic Games here on Saturday.
Sarabjot finished ninth with a total score of 577 in the qualifications while Arjun ended way behind at 18th with 574.
Germany’s Robin Walter, who also shot 577, grabbed the last (eighth) qualifying spot after managing to shoot one inner 10 (X) more than Sarabjot’s 16.
A perfect 100 in the fourth series propelled the 22-year-old Sarabjot into the top-three after a poor start but he failed to sustain the momentum and fizzled out.
Cheema shot 10 perfect 10s off his last 10 shots, which lifted him to the fourth position but he too lost the plot after promising much.
The 23-year-old Cheema collected 97 points from Series 2 (8, 10, 10, 10, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10) and was placed 10th in the list. He collected 96 points from Series 1. However, a poor 7 followed by a 9 from Cheema saw him slip outside the top eight.
Both Cheema and Sarabjot were part of the Indian side that won the 10m air pistol team gold at the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year.
Earlier in the day, the Indian shooters were eliminated in the 10m air rifle mixed team qualifications stage.
Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta finished sixth with a total score of 628.7, while Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh ended 12th with an aggregate score of 626.3.
The duo of Ramita and Babuta came close and was placed fifth with three shots remaining but fell 1.0 point short of the medal round cut-off.
Babuta enjoyed a fine start in the second relay and had a sequence that read 10.5, 10.6, 10.5, 10.9, while Ramita managed 10.2, 10.7, 10.3, 10.1 in the second series.
But, to get into the bronze medal round, they needed to do more than what they eventually achieved. Shooters from China, Korea and Kazakhstan dominated the qualifications.
China eventually won the first gold medal of the Games in this event after qualifying as the top team for the finals.
A side has to get to the top four to enter the medal matches. (PTI)
