The Indian Women’s Archery team of Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi appeared in the Women’s Team and Individual ranking event at the Rio Olympics 2016. The ranking round is played in order to decide the seedings of the Archers for the upcoming knockout rounds.
The results were not what Indian fans would have hoped for though; after a bright start, the Women Archers faltered and failed to get back on track. As a result of the dismal individual performances in the ranking round, the Indian Women’s Team finished on the 7th place with 1892 points. Had the Indian team achieved a top 4 finish, they would have got a bye to the quarterfinals.
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The Indian trio started strongly, with all of them trying their best to maintain as high a position as possible. Deepika even managed to climb up to 1st by the fifth round, courtesy of some brilliant shots and back-to-back scores of 58 in the fourth and fifth round. However, her performance took a huge dip after the fifth round and she kept losing places in each subsequent round to finally finish at the 20th place with a total score of 640.
Bombayla Devi started slowly but gained positions gradually and even climbed up to 8th place. However, just like Deepika, she underwent a lean patch and lost places after the break, which is taken after the archers complete six rounds. Ultimately, she finished on the 24th place with a total score of 638.
Laxmirani Majhi was the weak link of the trio as she never really took off and remained in the lower half of the seeding table. By the 7th round, she was placed at lowly 54th. She did show some improvement but it did not account for much as she finally finished on the 43rd place with a total score of 614.
Deepika Kumari (finished 20th in the ranking event) will take on Georgian international Kristine Esebua (finished 45th in the ranking event) while Bombayla Devi (finished 24th in the ranking event) will take on Austrian international Laurence Baldauff (finished 41st in the ranking event) in the round of 64.
The third Indian archer, Laxmirani Majhi (finished 43rd in the ranking event) will take on Slovakian international Alexandra Longova (finished 22nd in the ranking event) in the round of 64.
For the team event, the first 4 teams get a bye to the quarter-finals stage while the teams ranked 5th to 12th will fight for the rest of 4 spots in the quarter finals. Therefore, Team India (finished 7th ) will take on Colombia (finished 10th ) for a place in the quarter-finals!
South Korean Women dominate
The South Korean trio of Choi Misun, Chang Hye Jin and Ki Bo Bae finished first, second and third respectively. While Choi scored 669, Chang got 666 and Bae scored 663 points. Their performance also propelled the Korean team to the top of Team rankings, with a total of 1998 points.
