Archer Deepika Kumari wins gold after earning quota for Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Ace archer Deepika Kumari wins gold in the finals of women's recurve archery event at the Asian Continental Qualification Tournament in Bangkok. This is Deepika Kumari's first gold medal in 2019.

Three individual places were up for grabs from the continental qualifications and Indian archers, who were competing without Indian flag due to the national federation's suspension, made a big statement with top seed Deepika and sixth seed Ankita Bhakat making it to the last four to secure an individual recurve women Olympic berth.

Deepika defeated her Indian compatriot Ankita 6-0 (27-24, 27-26, 27-26) in the final, and the latter finished with a silver. Deepika put up a flawless show to beat Nur Afisa Abdul Halil of Malaysia 7-2, Zahra Nemati (Iran) 6-4 and local girl Narisara Khunhiranchaiyo 6-2 to set up a semifinal clash against Nguyet Do Thi Anh of Vietnam. In the semifinal, she won the tie by 6-2.

In the other semi-final, Ankita Bhakat had defeated Bhutan's Karma 6-2. Earlier, she defeated Lam Shuk Ching Ada of Hong Kong 7-1, Nguyen Thi Phuong of Vietnam 6-0 and Anastassiya Bannova (Kazakhstan) 6-4 to set up a last-four battle against Karma.

Karma of Bhutan and Nguyen Thi Phuong of Vietnam won the remaining two individual quota places. Each country has the chance to win a maximum of one quota place in each category and it will be just one spot despite two Indian archers finishing on the podium.

Kumari had earlier won the bronze medal in the recurve mixed pair event, partnering Atanu Das, where the duo defeated Yichai Zheng and Shaoxuan Wei of China 6-2.