In the first event for the Indian contingent at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the recurve archers were in action in the qualification ranking round on Thursday to decide the draws for the individual, team and mixed team events.
In the men’s ranking round, Dhiraj Bommadevara finished fourth while the men’s team qualified in third place. Ankita Bhakat finished in 11th place as the Indian women’s recurve team qualified in fourth place in the women’s recurve ranking round.
The Indian women secured the fourth seeding with a total core of 1983 as Olympic champions South Korea set a new world record of 2046 to take the top seeding.
The team of Bhakat, Deepika Kumari and Bhajan Kaur will begin their campaign directly in the quarter-final on July 28 and will face the winner of the match between France and the Netherlands.
Bhakat herself finished with 666 points in the individual ranking, her season’s best score so far. She will open her individual campaign against Wioleta Myszor of Poland on July 30. Kumari, who had a nervy qualification round, will face off against Reena Parnat of Estonia while Kaur will take on Indonesia’s Syifa Nirafifah Kamal.
Later in the day, the Indian men’s team of Bommadevara, veteran Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav finished in third place with a total of 2013, 36 points behind Olympic champions South Korea. The men’s team will also begin their campaign directly in the quarter-finals on July 29 against either Colombia or Turkey.
Bommadevara finished with a score of 681 and will open his individual campaign on July 30 against Li Adam of Czech Republic.
Rai and Jadhav start off against Tom Hall of Great Britain and Kao Wenchao of China respectively.
By virtue of being the highest-ranked archers for their country, Bhakat and Bommadevara will compete in the mixed team event where India are seeded fifth with a combined score of 1347. They will start their campaign against 12th seeds Indonesia.
