Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das fail to make it to Asian Games team 

India's Deepika Kumari failed to make it to the Asian Games team. (PC: Getty Images)
India's Deepika Kumari failed to make it to the Asian Games team. (PC: Getty Images)

Indian archers Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das missed out on Asian Games berths as they finished outside the top four in the archery selection trials.

Tarundeep Rai, Neeraj Chauhan, Sachin Gupta and Jayanta Talukdar made the top four in the men's recurve category, while Ridhi, Komalika Bari, Ankita Bhakat and Simranjeet Kaur finished as the top four female archers. The eight archers will represent India at the Asian Games to be held in Hangzou from September 10 to 25.

The top four archers will also compete in the first three stages of the Archery World Cup.

Meanwhile, Parth Salunkhe, Kapil, Aditya Choudhary, and Pravin Jadhav were the next four best archers, while Deepika Kumari, Ishita, Dipti Kumari and Aditi Jaiswal came fifth to eighth among the recurve women archers.

Read: Triumphant para-archer Pooja Jatyan: "My life would be incomplete without archery"

The archers, who have been placed fifth to eighth, will get a chance to compete in the fourth stage of the Archery World Cup, scheduled to be played in Medellin from July 17 to 24.

This is the first time since winning a gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, that Deepika Kumari will not be part of an Indian team for the Asian Games.

The former World No. 1 was a part of the Indian Asian Games squads in 2010, 2014 and 2018, winning a team bronze in Guangzhou 12 years ago.

However, all is not lost for Deepika Kumari as she finished fifth in the selection trials. Should any of the top four archers fare poorly in the upcoming events, Deepika could make the cut following another selection trial in July.

However, it is not all hunky-dory for Atanu Das as he finds himself out of contention.

In fact, Pravin Jadhav, who competed at the Tokyo Olympics, hasn't found a place for himself either.

Deepika Kumari to compete in World Cup, Atanu Das misses again

Atanu Das had a horrid trial, failing to finish in the top eight and thereby missing out on a place in the Indian team for the fourth stage of the Archery World Cup too. He lost to Pravin Jadhav in the pre-quarterfinals.

Deepika Kumari, however, managed to pull herself into the top eight when she finished fifth in the two-phase selection trials.

Earlier, both Deepika and Atanu were removed from the list of Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) supported athletes.

The Mission Olympic Cell (MOC), under the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, decided to review the TOPS support for both the archers after a below-par performance in the National Ranking Archery Tournament in Hyderabad.

Noting that both Deepika and Atanu had not registered satisfactory performances, the MOC decided not to include them in the TOPS list.

A formal team announcement from the Archery Association of India (AAI) on the Indian archery teams for the World Cup and Asian Games will be made after the conclusion of trials for the compound archery category.

Also read: Tiaxcala in Mexico to host Archery World Cup Final

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Edited by S Chowdhury
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