Deepika finishes 9th in ranking round, to take on Bhutanese archer next

Tokyo: Ace Indian archer Deepika Kumari finished a creditable ninth after the women’s individual ranking round, notching up a total of 663 points, on the opening day of the Tokyo Olympics at the Yumenoshima Ranking Field, the venue of the archery competitions, on Friday.

The 27-year-old Deepika, winner of a hattrick of gold medals at the in the World Cup Stage 3 in Paris late last month which helped her reclaim the No.1 spot in the world, has now been paired with Bhutan’s Karma in the elimination round.

On a day when South Korea’s An San created an Olympic record, scoring 680 and finishing on top of the charts, Deepika’s performance fluctuated between brilliant and mediocre as the Indian world No. 1 started at No. 8 after the first six shots but slipped to 14th, finishing the first half placed fourth on the leaderboard.

Deepika again saw a slump in the second half but recovered with a fine 58 and moved to sixth after 10 rounds. But a penultimate round of 53 saw her come down to seventh with an 609 aggregate of points, before another below-par round of 54 saw her dip further to ninth spot, for a final aggregate of 663 points.

Deepika is competing in her third Olympics. She will take part in women’s individual and mixed team event where she is paired with husband Atanu Das.

The archery competition comprises a ranking round, where 128 archers — 64 men and as many women — shoot 72 arrows at a targets 70 metres away, Each archer is given two minutes to shoot six arrows in each round with 720 being the perfect score.

Based on the scores in the round, the first-ranked archer goes up against the 64th-ranked archer, the second is pitted against the 63rd, and so on.

South Korean An San, who finished with an Olympic record of 680, surpassed that of Lina Herasymenko of Ukraine, who had shot 673 points in 1996.