Watch live, Archery World Cup Final 2021: Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das back in action
Archery couple Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari are competing for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics. Abhishek Verma is the only Indian compound archer. watch live!
India’s Atanu Das, Deepika Kumari and Abhishek Verma will compete at the season-ending Archery World Cup Final 2021 starting Wednesday (early hours of Thursday in India) at Yankton, USA.
The Archery World Cup Final is an annual event that invites eight archers each in the men’s recurve, women’s recurve, men’s compound and women’s compound events.
The winners of each Archery World Cup stage throughout the year receive direct qualification as do the individual Olympic champions in an Olympic year. The host country receives one extra wildcard spot.
The rest of the places are filled by archers with the highest ranking points before the Archery World Cup Final.
In the recurve events, India will be represented by Deepika Kumari in the women’s individual recurve and her husband Atanu Das in the men’s recurve.
This is the first time since Tokyo 2020 that the couple will be in action at a competitive event.
Deepika Kumari - who was knocked out of the Olympics in the quarter-finals by eventual champion An San - qualified for the World Cup Final after winning the Guatemala stage of the World Cup in April.
Atanu Das - who stunned Olympic champion Oh Jin-Hyek before bowing out to bronze-medallist Takaharu Furukawa in the round of 16 in Tokyo - also qualified after winning the Guatemala stage of the World Cup.
Abhishek Verma is the only Indian archer competing in the compound event. He won the men’s compound gold in the Paris stage of the World Cup in June.
He comes into the event having won the compound mixed team silver with Jyothi Vennam at the World Championships in Yankton last week.
There will be no mixed team exhibition match at the Archery World Cup Final for the first time since 2009.
A mixed team exhibition match was held from 2009 to 2019 to promote the format and with the mixed team making its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, its goal was achieved.
Archery World Cup Final 2021 Indian archers schedule and live start times
All times are in India Standard Time (IST)
Thursday, September 30
Abhishek Verma in men’s compound - 12:30 AM IST onwards
Deepika Kumari in women’s recurve - 8:30 PM IST onwards
Friday, October 1
Atanu Das in men’s recurve - 12:30 AM IST onwards
Where to watch the Archery World Cup Final 2021 live in India?
Live streaming of the World Archery Championships 2021 will be on World Archery’s official YouTube channel.