World Archery C'ships: Indian recurve archers fail to secure Olympics team quota

Indian recurve archers failed to secure the Paris Olympics team quota after making quarterfinal exits in both men's and women's events at the ongoing World Archery Championships on Wednesday.

While the recurve archers bowed out, the compound women's team comprising Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Parneet Kaur, and Aditi Swami stunned defending champions Colombia 220-216 to enter the final.

The tournament offers quotas to the next year's Olympics for the top-three finishers in team and individual events. The men's recurve team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Rajat Chauhan, and Tushar Shelke lost to India's nemesis Korea 1-5 (49-55, 57-57, 53-55).

The women's recurve team of Bhajan Kaur, Ankita Bhakat, and Simranjeet Kaur lost to the Netherlands 2-6 (49-48, 52-53, 48-50, 54-57). They took the opening set to go 2-0 up, but only to lose the next three.

Indian recurve archers' hope will lie in the individual section as they will look to book their tickets for Paris.

Dhiraj Bommadevara will be the biggest hope for India as he grabbed the second seeding in the qualification round of the men's individual recurve section.

In the recurve mixed team event, India was disappointed despite having a favourable draw due to a fourth-place finish in the qualification.

The team of Dhiraj and Ankita got a bye in the last-16 but then lost to lower-ranked Italy 4-5 in the shoot-off.

In compound archery, India failed to impress in the men's and mixed-team events.

Abhishek Verma, Ojas Deotale, and Prathamesh Jawkar went down in the quarterfinals to the Netherlands 230-235 in the men's event while Deotale and Jyothi Surekha were pipped by the USA 154-153 in the round of last-eight.

The next chance for the Indian recurve archers to qualify for the Paris Olympics will be the upcoming Asian Games which offers quota for mixed teams and two individuals.

The Asian Championship in November in Bangkok and next year's Antalya World Cup in June are the last two qualifying tournaments.

In the worst-case scenario, India will still stand a chance to qualify by the top-8 of the World ranking, which will be awarded as per the list updated on June 24, 2024.