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There were heavier expectations from some Indian athletes participating in the Tokyo Olympics 2021 than others. Heading into the Games, India's archery team was one of the country's top medal prospects. However, they faltered one after the other as their dreams of winning a medal evaporated.
Four archers participated from Team India - Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav, and Tarundeep Rai.
On the opening day of archery, Jadhav finished in 31st position in the men's individual ranking round with 656 points and Rai was 37th with 652 points. Meanwhile, Das ended the day in 35th position with 653 points while Kumari finished ninth with 663 points.
Let's take a close-up look at each of their performances:
Deepika Kumari
Kumari made a decent start to her 2021 Olympic journey. She finished her first day in ninth position with 663 points in women's individual recurve - an event that was dominated by the South Korean archers.
The 27-year-old was then set up against Bhutan's Karma in the 1/32 elimination round, which saw the veteran archer comfortably cruise past with the scoreline reading 6-0.
The world No. 1 then defeated USA’s Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez 6-4 in the 1/16 elimination round on Wednesday to advance to the pre-quarterfinals.
Kumari then edged out two-time Olympic silver-medallist Ksenia Perova of ROC 6-5 in a shootoff in the 1/8 eliminations. However, she eventually lost 0-6 to top seed An San of South Korea and was out of the women's individual archery event.
Atanu Das
Atanu Das scored 653 to take 35th place on the men’s ranking list in the qualification round. Later, Atanu defeated Yu-Cheng Deng 6-4 in the men's individual 1/32 eliminations round.
The Indian archer stunned Olympic champion Oh Jin-Hyek of South Korea 6-5 and progressed to the 1/8 eliminations to square off against local Takaharu Furukawa.
Unfortunately, Das bowed out to the Japanese archer 4-6 and bid adieu to Tokyo.
Tarundeep Rai
In what would be his final Olympic appearance, veteran Indian archer Tarundeep Rai went down 5-6 against Israel's Itay Shanny in the 1/16 eliminations.
Rai pulled off a thrilling 6-4 victory over Ukraine's Oleksii Hunbin in the previous round, which saw him rebound from a 0-2 deficit to seal the game.
Pravin Jadhav
Pravin Jadhav began his Olympic campaign in men's individual recurve on a strong note. He defeated ROC's Galsan Bazarzhapov 6-0 in the 1/32 eliminations.
However, he failed to maintain that momentum. His Olympic journey ended with a 0-6 loss to world No.1 Brady Ellison (USA) in the 1/16 eliminations.
Mixed team
Deepika Kumari was paired with Pravin Jadhav for the recurve mixed team event. The duo bounced back to defeat the Chinese Taipei duo of Lin Chia-en and Tang Chih-chun 5-3 in the pre-quarterfinal match. It was an impressive comeback for the Indians after trailing 1-3 at one point.
In the quarterfinals, though, the Indian duo were eliminated after losing 6-2 to South Korean pair An San and Kim Je-deok.
Men's team event
The Indian men's archery team comprising of Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav also met their end at the hands of the mighty Koreans.
They defeated Kazakhstan's Ilfat Abdullin, Denis Gankin and Sanzhar Mussayev 6-2 in a tight 1/8 elimination clash to advance to the quarterfinal round. The South Korean team comprising of Kim Woo-jin, Kim Je-deok and Oh Jin-Hyek then defeated the Indian trio 6-0.
The biggest letdown by far was power archery couple Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das. They once again succumbed to pressure despite their experience. There were good performances in the middle but they were unable to keep improvising.
Competing against the best at the Olympics is no cakewalk but more was expected from the Indian archers in Tokyo. The whole nation will now look for an improved performance from them in Paris.
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