Asian Archery Continental Qualifier: 3 recurve archers reach quarters, in fray for Olympic quota places

Three out of six Indian archers are still in contention for 2024 Paris Olympics quota places at the end of the opening day's play at the Asian Archery Continental Qualifiers in Bangkok on Friday.

Dhiraj Bommadevara and Tarundeep Rai in the men's recurve, and Ankita Bhakat in the women's recurve have reached the quarterfinal stage scheduled for Saturday.

Bommadevara, continuing his good form, topped the qualification round with 677 points. Following him closely, Tarundeep Rai finished second with 676 whereas Praveen Jadhav finished in the fourth position with 671 points.

In the elimination round, Bommadevara took two comfortable 6-0 victories against archers from Turkmenistan and Singapore to book his place in the quarterfinals, whereas Tarundeep Rai registered a 6-2 win over Bangladesh's Ruman Shana to reach the quarterfinals.

Pravin Jadhav, however, could not replicate the show of the other two Indian archers and lost 3-7 to Iranian player Mohammadhossein in the Round of 16.

Both Bommadevara and Tarundeep will start their quest for a Paris Olympics quota place on Saturday with their quarterfinal matches being scheduled against Iranian and Chinese Taipei archers respectively.

In the women's recurve event, Ankita Bhakat who finished second in the qualification round is the only female archer from India to reach the quarterfinals. She registered a 6-5 win in a shootoff over Pia Elizabeth of the Philippines.

All Indian women's recurve hopes will be on her when she plays Ziyodakhon Abdusattorova of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinals.

Among other women's recurve archers, Tisha Punia lost 4-6 to Ziyodakhon Abdusattorova of Uzbekistan in Round of 16 whereas Bhajan kaur lost 2-6 in the round of 32 against Sataporn Artsalee of Thailand.