India’s only representative in archery at the Rio Paralympic Games in Brazil, Pooja Khanna, finished the ranking round at the 29th spot with a total of 513 points at the Sambodromo in Rio De Janeiro. The performance in the ranking round puts the Indian in contention to face the 4th placed Poland’s Milena Olszewska in the round of 32 match at the Games.
The event consisted of 32 athletes in all who were supposed to shoot a total of 72 arrows, which were divided into groups of six, and the rankings were decided after the end of the round. The archer with the maximum number of points after the completion of the event was ranked number one and so forth.
Hence, the top-ranked player will now face the 32nd ranked, the 2nd ranked will be facing the 31st ranked and henceforth. The ranking round is followed by the round-of-32 after which the pre-quarterfinals, quarterfinals, semifinals and the final will be taking place.
First half
Pooja Khanna started the event with a total of 47 points from her first six arrows as she scored 9,8,8,8,7 and 7. The archer saw herself sit at the 18th spot after the completion of the first sets of six arrows. The Indian improved on her performance in her second set of six arrows as she added another 50 points to her score to climb up to the 13th spot after getting scores of 10, 9, 8, 8, 8 and 7 points.
Pooja’s third series of six arrows saw her accumulate a very poor 43 points which saw her drop to the 17th spot on the table as she had a tally of 140 points in all. The archer scored 9, 8, 8, 7, 6 and 5 points from the third series, it meant that with nine rounds to go, Khanna needed to step up her game in order to finish as one of the best few archers at the competition.
The Indian scored another 45 points from her fourth series which saw her drop to the 18th spot on the table as she scored 9, 9, 7, 7, 7 and 6 points.
The Indian was consistently getting disappointing scores and the same happened in her fifth series of six arrows as she managed only 41 points with scores of 9, 7, 7, 7, 6 and 5. The low scores saw the young archer drop to the 21st spot on the table.
Khanna ended her first half by getting to a score of 270 as she scored 9, 8, 8, 7, 6 and 6 points in her sixth series which saw her drop further to the 22nd spot.
Second half
An excellent second half from the Indian was the only way for her to qualify as a top-ranked athlete but Khanna could only manage 45 points from the first series of the second half, taking her to the 21st spot. However, it was the second series of the second half that saw the archer drop tremendously as she slipped to the 27th spot with a total score of only 352.
Khanna could not match her top competitors as she scored only 47 points from her third series of the second half. This tally of points was not ideal for the Indian as she drifted one more place to 28th in the table out of the total 32 athletes.
Another 44 points from her fourth series saw the archer take her tally of points to 443 as she struck a rare 10 pointer. The Indian scored 10, 9, 8, 7, 5 and 5 points which did not see her move up in the table.
A miserable score of only 31 points from the fifth series saw Khanna drop to the 30th spot on the table as she missed an arrow. The last series for the Indian was mere formality as even a full 60 points would have seen her climb to only the late 20s on the table.
Khanna ended the ranking round by scoring 39 points which saw her end the round at the 29th spot. This result will see Pooja Khanna face 4th placed Poland’s Milena Olszewska in the Round of 32.
The event saw a wide difference between the 32 competitors as the divide between the 1st placed and the last placed archer was more than 100 points after the first six series. The stand-out performers from the event were the Chinese duo of Chunyan Wu and Jinyan Ye who occupied the first and third spots respectively in the rankings while Iran’s Zahra Nemati finished at the 2nd spot.
All the archers have now progressed to the Round of 32 of the archery event.
