Olympians Atanu Das, Deepika Kumari fall behind in National Ranking Archery Tournament

Reigning national champion Parth Salunkhe topped the qualification round even as the Tokyo Olympic-returned trio of Pravin Jadhav, Atanu Das and seniormost Tarundeep Rai slipped in the National Ranking Archery Tournament on Saturday.

The 18-year-old Maharashtra archer shot 680 points to top the qualification round in the recurve men's section, while Army man B Dhiraj (678) and Shukmani Babrekar (670) took the second and third spots respectively.

Jadhav was the best among the Tokyo-returned trio finishing with 669 points to take the fourth spot, while World Cup gold medalist Atanu Das came a lowly eighth, while seniormost Army archery Rai narrowly made the cut finishing 15th.

Multiple World Cup gold medalist and three-time Olympian Deepika Kumari took the third spot in the women's recurve section, finishing below Ankita Bhakat (668) and Simranjeet Kaur.

Simranjeet and Deepika were tied on 656 points but the former edged out the star Indian archer shooting 26 perfect 10s.

In the compound section, the qualifications went on expected lines with Abhishek Verma and Jyothi Surekha Vennam clinching the pole positions in the men's and women's sections respectively.