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Olympics 2021 is underway, and the first event Indians were in action was archery. The Indian archery team comprising Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai participated in the ranking round to determine their rankings and their opponents for the next stage.
What is a ranking round in archery?
The ranking round pairs 64 men or women. Each archer gets 72 arrows to shoot at the target. The more points an archer gets in the ranking round, the better his/her ranking is, i.e. the archer with the highest points in the ranking round will be ranked first.
Every archer gets to shoot 72 arrows in 12 sets. One set comprises of six shots at the target.
Once all the archers have shot their 72 arrows, the rankings are finalized.
After the rankings, the archers are paired. The highest ranked archer is paired with the lowest ranked archer, i.e, rank 1 archer will be paired with rank 64 archer, Rank 2 archer will be paired with Rank 63 archer, and so on.
The two archers of a pair then compete against each other. In the individual elimination matches, the loser leaves the competition and the winner advances to the next phase. This goes on until only two archers remain. They compete in the gold medal match.
What happened in the men's individual ranking round?
The three Indian men, Pravin Jadhav, Atanu Das and Tarundeep Rai, finished in the bottom half of the rankings.
Pravin Jadhav scored 656 points and was ranked 31st, Atanu Das scored 653 points and was ranked 35th and Tarundeep Rai scored 652 points and was ranked 37th.
Three takeaways from the men's individual archery ranking event
#1. Indian men struggle for consistency
The Indian men were not at their best in the ranking round. Pravin Jadhav managed to hit the bull's eye only five times in his 72 shots. Atanu Das managed to hit the "X" seven times and Tarundeep Rai hit the bull's eye only six times. The three men were mostly in the lower half of the table.
#2. Pravin Jadhav to partner Deepika Kumari in mixed event
Deepika Kumari will not partner with her husband Atanu Das for the mixed team event. Instead, she will be teaming up with Pravin Jadhav. Earlier, Deepika Kumari had scored 663 points and was ranked ninth. Pravin Jadhav and Deepika Kumari's combined score is 1319. As a result, India's mixed team of Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav is ranked ninth for the event.
#3. What's next for the archers?
According to the men's individual rankings, Tarundeep Rai will face Ukraine's Oleksii Hunbin. Oleksii Hunbin finished 28th on the ranking table. Atanu Das will face Taipei's Deng Yu-Cheng, who was ranked 30th. Pravin Jadhav will lock horns with ROC's Galsan Bazarzhapov. Galsan Bazarzhapov finished 34th after his 72 shots.
The men's team earned a total of 1961 points and finished ninth. They will face Kazakhstan's team comprising of Gankin Denis, Abdullin Ilfat and Mussayev Sanzhar. If India beat Kazakhstan, they will face Korea next.
The mixed team of Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav will meet Chinese Taipei's Lin Chia-En and Tang Chih-Chun in the first round and will most probably run into South Korea in the quarterfinals.
Deepika Kumari will be in action shortly in the women's singles recurve. She will face Bhutan's Karma in the round of 64.
Also read: Why it's important for Deepika Kumari to score bulls-eye at Tokyo Olympics
