Indian archers look to hit restart button

Tokyo: Indian archers would look to make amends of a forgettable start to their Tokyo Olympics campaign when the men’s team takes the field for the elimination round here on Monday.

The men’s trio of Pravin Jadhav, Atanu Das and Tarundeep Rai all finished outside top-30 in the ranking round to get a ninth seeding. The team would start off against Kazakhstan.

Making his Olympic debut, Army man Jadhav was the best among the Indians to be ranked 31st, four places ahead of Das, while veteran Rai, in his third Olympics appearance, took a lowly 37th spot among the 64 archers.

Jadhav would be taking the field two days after the quarterfinal defeat in the mixed pair competition, along with Deepika Kumari.

Maintaining consistency would be the key for Jadhav while Das and Rai would look to step up the momentum.

“He is a calm and composed shooter but lacks experience. Hopefully his mixed team exposure would put him in good stead,” India chief coach Mim Bahadur Gurung said.

If they get past the first round hurdle, the men’s trio will face top seed Korea who have got a bye into the last-eight. The individual elimination round for the Indians will begin on Thursday as ace archer Deepika Kumari would look for redemption.

Deepika and Jadhav had failed to live up to the hyped build-up to the Olympics, making a quarterfinal exit in the mixed pair competition on Saturday, an event considered their stronghold.

Many saw the loss against an ordinary-looking Korea as a tactical blunder after the Indian think-tank broke up husband-wife pair of Das and Deepika, who were coming off after winning a World Cup gold medal in Paris less than a month ago.