Atanu Das, who took the Archery world by storm after stellar performances in the round-of-64 and round-of-32 of the men’s individual event at the Rio Olympics, will be facing World no. 8 Lee Seungyun of South Korea in the pre-quarter-finals today at the Sambodromo. All hopes of a medal from archery now lie on Atanu’s shoulders after the Indian women archers bowed out of the Games yesterday.
Few had pinned their hopes on the West Bengal-born archer before the Games had started. However, after an impressive fifth-rank in the ranking round, Atanu caught everyone’s attention. He carried his momentum into the knockouts and swept aside Nepal’s Jitbahadur Muktan 6-0 in the round-of-64, scoring 29, 29 and 30 in three consecutive sets, which included seven 10s and just two 9s.
In the next round, he was up against Cuban international Adrian Andres Puentes Perez, a match which was played within an hour of Atanu’s previous one. Naturally, he was in his zone and won the first two sets easily with some brilliant shooting. The Cuban, however, upped the ante and came back to win the next two sets.
Not the one to back down, Atanu scored two 10s in his last two shots to take the fifth set and make it to the pre-quarters.
On the other hand, the Indian’s opponent, Lee Seungyun’s road to the pre-quarterfinal was equally easy. After finishing 12th in the ranking round, Lee won the round-of-64 match 6-2 against Brazil’s Daniel Xavier and then trumped Spain’s Miguel Garcia 7-1 in the round-of-32.
There is no denying that Lee will be the toughest opponent Atanu has faced so far at the Games. However, if we focus on his performances in the last couple of rounds, we have every right to be optimistic.
Live Telecast
LIVE online updates: Sportskeeda Archery LIVE
Channel: Star Sports Network
Live Stream: starsports.com and Hotstar app
Date and Time: Friday, 12 August 2016 – 17:43 IST
The Men’s event is scheduled to get over tonight itself with the quarterfinals starting at 23:30 IST, the semifinals at 00:41 IST(13th August), the Bronze Medal match at 00:57 IST (13th August) and the Gold Medal match at 01:13 IST (13th August).
