Rio de Janeiro, Aug 6: India’s women’s archery team, comprising Deepika Kumar, L. Bombayala Devi and Laxmirani Majhi, finished seventh to enter the pre-quarterfinals of the 31st Olympics here on Friday.
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Hockey: Having qualified for first Olympics after 36 years, Indian women’s team fought hard to draw their opening game 2-2 against Japan. “It’s always a new target when you are on your mark”, Bombayala said. It was another moment of reckoning where she scored only 9 thereby handing over the set to Russian Federation by a 55-54 margin which enabled them to take the match into the shoot-off round. The two teams were on even keel at 3-3 after first three sets and the turning point came in the final set. The Slovakian won the first, second and third sets 27-25, 28-26 and 27-24. Colombian archer shot a six-pointer in the third set while her teammates followed up with fine shots but finally the South American nation tied India with a score of 52-52 after judges took a close look at the Colombian archer’s last shot, initially giving her nine points.
Earlier, India beat Colombia 5-3 in the pre-quarterfinal to face off against 2012 Games semifinalists Russian Federation.
Bombayla who led from the front with 52 points out of a possible 60, said that the team with rich expeience would recover quickly and focus on the individual events.
Deepika and Bombayla will now aim to qualify further when they will play their respective last-32 elimination round of the individual women’s recurve event on August 10.
The gold winning Korean team had a small piece of advice for the Indian archers on how to tackle windy conditions.
“The strong gusts of wind twice before India’s turn to shoot could have been a factor as we did not have much practice against strong wind”, said Tiwari.
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“There was a lot of pressure of expectation but it did not affect us”.
