Indian recurve archery women lose to Colombia, Tokyo Olympics 2020 berth slips away

The Indian archery women's team of Deepika Kumari, Komalika Bari and Ankita Bhakat failed to rise to the occasion as India lost to Colombia 0-6 in their Tokyo Olympics Archery qualifiers in Paris on Sunday.

The Indian women's archery team, seeded second, put up an insipid show to bow out of the qualifiers on a whimper, in what could be termed the biggest upset of the qualifiers.

Read: Tokyo Olympics: The sport in which India is likely to win its first-ever Olympic Medal - Archery

Colombia, seeded 15th, put up a superb display of archery, giving India no chance of coming back into the game. The Colombian trio of Ana Maria Rendon, Valentina Acosta Giraldo and Maira Sepulveda rattled India in all three sets. The final score read 55-54, 51-49, 53-52 in favor of the 15th seed.

Indian archery team outplayed

In the first set, Colombia pipped India by a solitary point to win 55-54. It started with Colombia hitting the ‘X’, a 10-pointer, in the first shot while India responded with a 10 themselves. India seemed to be getting the better of their opponents when they managed a second 10, but Colombia's consistency of scoring nine’s thrice and an eight in the final shot kept them in good stead as opposed to India’s scores of 9,9,8 and 8.

In the second set, Colombia started with another ‘X’ while India managed another 10. However, India managed to only score five with the last shot and went down by two points. With a score of 51-49, it was Colombia who raced to a two-set lead.

Colombia started with another ‘X’ in the third set and in a bid to desperately get back into the game, the Indian women's archery team could only manage 10, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, with a total of 52, thereby failing to go past Colombia’s score of 53.

Earlier, India and Mexico were the top two seeds in the Tokyo Olympics archery qualifiers. The top eight teams needed to win just three of their matches while the remaining 16 squads had to win four. The top eight seeds play from the second round after receiving a bye in the first.

India will have four archers traveling to Tokyo for the Olympics. While the men’s recurve archery team comprising Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai will compete in the team event, Deepika Kumari will compete in the women’s individual archery event.