India at Tokyo Olympics: Day 1 Highlights – Deepika 9th, men’s archers disappoint

India at Tokyo Olympics: Day 1 Highlights – Deepika 9th, men’s archers disappoint

Indian archers at the Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo-bound archers kick-started India’s stint at the 2020 Summer Olympics on day one. Starting from the top-ranked archer in the women’s rankings, Deepika Kumari finished at the ninth spot with 663 points out of a possible 720 at the end of the individual ranking round. 

Deepika was comfortably placed in the fourth position at the end of the first half. However, the 27-year-old derailed to the seventh spot till the second last round before she could manage just 54 points in the last round. As a result, Kumari finished at ninth to book a berth against Bhutan’s Karma (56). They will be up against each other in the Women’s Individual round of 64 on July 28 Wednesday at the Yumenoshima Park, Tokyo. 

Coming to the top performers of the day in the women’s event, South Korea stole the show as all the positions in the top three were occupied by their archers. An San of Korea topped the table by breaking the Olympic Record of 673 points set by Ukraine’s Lina Herasimenko back in 1996 (680 points) in the ranking round. In fact, all top four finishers in the women’s individual round have scored more points than Herasimenko.

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Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav struggle

Indian men's archery team bound to the Tokyo Olympics
Indian men’s archery team bound to the Tokyo Olympics

India’s trio of Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav in the men’s individual event struggled to leave a great impact in the ranking round. All three of them finished in the 30s where Jadhav was placed at the 31st spot, Das at 35th and Tarundeep at 37th. Their final scores read as 653, 653 and 652 respectively. 

India’s fixtures for Men’s Individual Round of 64:

  • Pravin Jadhav (31) vs Galsan Bazarzhapov (ROC – 34) [Men’s Individual: July 28, Wednesday]
  • Atanu Das (35) vs Deng Yu-Cheng (Chinese Taipei – 30) [Men’s Individual: July 29, Thursday]
  • Tarundeep Rai (37) vs Oleksii Hunbin (Ukraine – 28) [Men’s Individual: July 28, Wednesday]

India’s fixtures for team events:

  • Mixed Team Round of 16 – [9] India vs Chinese Taipei [8] (July 24, Saturday)
  • Men’s Team Round of 16 – [9] India vs Kazakhstan [8] (July 26, Monday)

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