Asian Games 2022: Atanu Das, Deepika Kumari fail to make Indian archery team
Both Olympian archers finished outside the top four at the recurve trials, which was the Indian team selection cut off mark for this year’s Asian Games.
Olympians Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari, India’s top-ranked men’s and women’s recurve archers, will miss out on Asian Games 2022 after disappointing outings at the selection trials held at the SAI Center in Sonepat, Haryana, over the weekend.
World No. 9 Atanu Das, who has been struggling for form since winning the individual gold at the archery World Cup 2021 in Guatemala City, lost to his Tokyo Olympics team-mate Pravin Jadhav in the pre-quarterfinals of the second phase of the trials on Saturday and failed to finish within the top eight.
The 29-year-old Atanu Das had also missed the bus for last year’s archery world championships but seemed to be regaining his form. Das won the silver medal at the senior nationals earlier this month.
Tarundeep Rai, another Tokyo 2020 Olympian, topped the men’s recurve trials followed by Neeraj Chauhan, reigning national champion Sachin Gupta and Olympian Jayanta Talukdar.
According to the Archery Association of India’s (AAI) selection policy, the top four archers from the trials will compete at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China from September 10 to 25 and the first three stages of the archery World Cups in Antalya (April 17-24), Shanghai (May 15-22) and Paris (June 19-26).
Archers who were placed fifth to eighth will compete in the fourth stage of the World Cup in Medellin (July 17-24).
Parth Salunkhe, Kapil, Aditya Choudhary and Pravin Jadhav completed the top eight in men’s recurve.
In the women’s recurve division, Ridhi, who won the gold at the national championships in Jammu earlier this month, emerged as the top archer over the course of the two-phase trials. Komalika Bari, Ankita Bhakat and Simranjeet Kaur were the next three.
Three-time Olympian Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das’ wife and the current world No. 2, managed to squeeze in the top eight along with Ishita, Dipti Kumari and Aditi Jaiswal. Deepika had to settle for bronze at the nationals held earlier this week.
Like Atanu Das, Deepika has also struggled for form in the past few months.
The archers were ranked taking into account their consistency and performances in several elimination rounds over the two phases of trials.
In the compound archery trials which ended on March 30, four-time world championships silver medallist Jyothi Surekha Vennam missed the cut from the women's section and so did men's national champion Priyansh. Two-time World Cup medallist Abhishek Verma, however, made it through to the list.
Indian archery team for Asian Games 2022
Recurve
Men: Tarundeep Rai, Neeraj Chauhan, Sachin Gupta, Jayant Talukdar
Women: Ridhi, Komalika Bari, Ankita Bhakat, Simranjeet Kaur
Compound
Men: Abhishek Verma, Aman Saini, Rajat Chauhan, Mohan Bhardwaj
Women: Avneet Kaur, Muskan Kirar, Priya Gurjar, Raginee Marko