Indian women's recurve archery team qualifies for Olympics

Deepika Kumari of the Indian women’s recurve archery team

Copenhagen, July 28 (IANS) The Indian women's recurve archery team made a strong comeback to book a place in the 2016 Rio Olympics as the men failed to advance after losing to Italy in a tie-break at the World Championships here on Tuesday.

The women's trio comprising Laxmi Rani, Rimil Buriuly and Deepika Kumari had their backs against the wall at 1-3 against Germany. But they held their nerve to edge back into the contest and finally sealed it with a 5-3 win to make it through to the last eight and make the cut to next year's Olympics.

It was a tough ride, however, as the Germans refused to budge an inch. Elena Richter, Lisa Unruh and Karina Winter were steady from the start, winning the first set 46-59. They won the third too 51-50 making it 3-3.

But Deepika and her teammates refused to give up and finally secured the last set 53-52, which helped them pocket the game.

In the quarter-final, the Indian women will face Colombia.

In the men's event, it was the opposite as the experienced team of Jayanta Talukdar, Mangal Singh Champia and Rahul Banerjee gave up their 4-2 lead to surrender the game 26-29 to second seeds Italy in an edge-of-the seat tie breaker.

However, the trio can still qualify for the Olympics individually by finishing in the top 32 of the individuals event that is scheduled to start on Wednesday.