Tokyo Olympics archery rankings: Deepika Kumari ninth, men endure tough day

Indian archers endured a tough day in the men’s opening round at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. Pravin Jadhav was the highest ranked Indian at 31, followed by Atanu Das at 35 and Tarundeep Rai at the 37th spot.

At the Yumenoshima Park Archery Field, Pravin Jadhav scored 656 points, which included 22 10s and five X’s while Atanu Das and Tarundeep Rai accumulated 653 and 652, respectively, in their 72 arrows.

Like the women’s event earlier, the men’s field was also led by a Korean. Kim Je Deok topped the ranking with a score of 688.

Brady Ellison, the world record holder and Rio 2016 bronze medallist, was the third best with 682 points, followed by Oh Jin Hyek (681) at number three. Olympic record holder Kim Woojin (680) took up the fourth place.

Atanu Das made a decent start to the Tokyo 2020 campaign and maintained his position in the top 20 while Tarundeep and Pravin hovered in the 30s.

However, after 36 arrows, Atanu dropped down to 31. The Indians were unable to climb back up the rankings.

Pravin will face Galsan Bazarzhapov of the ROC in the elimination phase, while Atanu Das takes on Chinese Taipei’s Deng Yu-Cheng and Tarundeep Rai goes up against Oleksii Hunbin of Ukraine.

Their combined score (1961) of all three Indian men makes them the ninth seeded side in the men’s team event. They will face the team from Kazakhstan in the next round.

Deepika Kumari best Indian archer in ranking

Earlier, the world’s No. 1 recurve archer Deepika Kumari finished ninth in the women’s ranking round.

Deepika ended with 663 points out of a possible 720, hitting 30 10s and 13 X’s in her 72 arrows.

The Olympic record of 673 points in the qualification round was broken by the top four archers - Korea’s An San (680), Jang Minhee (677), Kang Chae Young (675) and Mexico’s Alejandra Valencia (674).

Deepika endured a challenging day as she kept moving up and down the leaderboard throughout the event.

The 27-year-old Deepika started her day well and was comfortably in the top 10 but a 7 in the fourth end saw her drop down to 14th place.

However, by the halfway mark, Deepika Kumari had climbed to fourth through a string of 10s and X’s, just behind South Korea’s An San (345), Jang Minhee (339) and Mackenzie Brown (336) of USA.

Deepika Kumari hit three 7s and a couple of 8s in the second half, which pushed her down the order.

With her ninth-place finish, Deepika will now face 56th placed Bhu Karma from Bhutan in the first elimination round. Bhu Karma, a Rio Olympian, is 193rd in world rankings.

The combined score (1319) of Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav makes them the ninth-placed duo in the mixed team event. The two will be up against Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chia-En and Tang Chin-Chun in the round of 16 on Saturday.

Indian archery draw for Tokyo Olympics

Individual men’s

Tarundeep Rai vs Oleksii Hunbin (UKR)

Atanu Das vs Deng Yu-cheng (TPE)

Pravin Jadhav vs Galsan Bazarzhapov (ROC)

Individual women’s

Deepika Kumari vs Bhu Karma (BHU)

Men’s team

India vs Kazakhstan

Mixed team

India vs Chinese Taipei