India's archery mixed team's possible path to final at Olympics 2021: Opponents, analysis and predictions

After a decent start for Indian archery where Deepika Kumari's best Olympic ranking round performance saw her finish ninth, the men's ranking round didn't quite work out in India's favour.

The competition saw three Indians take part - Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav. Das, who is India's best ranked men's individual archer, was expected to secure a strong finish in the ranking round. However, he only managed to finish 35th. Pravin Jadhav secured India's best finish in 31st place, while Rai finished 37th.

Draw 👇 for 1st round of the Men's Individual Recurve Archery event, to be held from 27 to 29 JulyPravin 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

— SAIMedia (@Media_SAI) July 23, 2021

This means that Pravin Jadhav, and not Atanu Das, will pair up with Deepika Kumari for the mixed team event. The combined scores of Jadhav and Kumari totalled 1319 points and placed India in ninth position. This means that India will be in the lower bracket and will have to face South Korea - arguably the strongest team and gold medal contenders - in the quarter-finals.

Let's take a look at India's possible opponents in their path to the final in the mixed team event.

India's archery mixed team's possible opponents

Round 1 - Chinese Taipei: India will face-off with Chinese Taipei - the 8th seed - in the first round of the competition. The opponents scored an identical 1319 points in the ranking round but finished ahead of India as they managed more bullseye shots. Chia-En Lin and Chih-Chun Tang will represent Chinese Taipei.

Round 2 - South Korea: If India manages to get past Chinese Taipei in the first round, they will be greeted by the intimidating South Koreans in the quarter-finals. The duo of An San and Kim Je Deok are the favorites to clinch gold and might prove too good for the Indians. However, as they say in sports, it ain't over till it's over.

#Tokyo2020 #ArcheryIn the mixed team, Deepika Kumari & Pravin Jadhav will meet Chinese Taipei's Lin Chia-En & Tang Chih-Chun in the first round and will most probably run into 🇰🇷 in the QFs. 🇰🇷 will meet 🇧🇩 in the first round. #IND #TeamIndia #Cheer4India #Olympics

— Sportskeeda India (@Sportskeeda) July 23, 2021

Round 3 - Mexico: India's road doesn't get any easier even if they somehow get past South Korea. The way the brackets have shaped up, it is very likely that India will have to face World No. 3 Mexico in the semi-finals of the competition. Although with a different pair, Mexico secured the gold medal in the mixed team event at the World Cup Stage 1 in Guatemala.

Round 4 - USA: By now, just in case anyone thought that India would finally be favorites after defeating South Korea and Mexico, get ready to be disappointed. India will face World No. 8 USA in case they make it to the final. Although India is ranked better in the world rankings, being without its favored pairing of Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari might just swing the balance towards the pair from the US.

India would not be a happy contingent after the first day's event. An under-par set of performances has seen the Indians placed in tricky draws and fixtures in all events. They must now focus on giving their best when the elimination rounds begin. The Indian mixed team pair will be in action in 1/8 elimination matches tomorrow i.e., the 24th of July from 6AM IST.