Dola Banerjee: Ranking round performance hurt Deepika Kumari's medal hopes in Archery
The former world champion believes that Deepika Kumari couldn’t perform to her potential.
Star Indian archer Deepika Kumari made an exit from Tokyo 2020 as she lost 0-6 to South Korea’s An San in the quarterfinals of women’s individual archery event.
The world number one, who was looking for her first Olympic medal since appearing at London 2012, also missed out on the mixed team event where she, alongside Pravin Jadhav, lost to South Korea’s An San and Je Deok Kim in the quarterfinals.
In both events, it was top seed An San who ended Kumari’s Tokyo 2020 sojourn and Dola Banerjee stated that had the Indian archer finished higher in the ranking round, she wouldn’t have to face the South Korean in the quarters. In fact, 20-year-old San broke a 25-year-old Olympic record by scoring 680 out of a possible 720 in the ranking round.
“It is the best result for us (Indian archery) to reach the quarter-finals. But I feel that if she wouldn't have finished at the ninth spot in the ranking round and been higher in the list, then she could have made it to the semi-final,” Banerjee expressed her opinion to Olympics.com.
“Her opponent An San was strong. Other than her, no other archers were this good. Deepika Kumari could have beaten the others,” she added.
Banerjee, who won the gold medal at 2007 World Cup, explained that Kumari couldn’t give her best performance as she struggled to even pose a challenge to San. She also opined that the wind flow also played a role, but Kumari should have done better.
“I thought that Deepika Kumari couldn't judge the wind properly because in the last few games her arrows went to the left. But in this game, it went to the right. I felt the flow of wind had changed suddenly. Otherwise, there is no reason to hit the arrows to her right.
“Overall mental pressure would have been for both the archers because they want an Olympic medal. An San is a player of different level. But what Deepika scored today was not herself, she did not play to her potential and couldn't even challenge her opponent. If she would have given a fight, then maybe An San could also have lost her momentum,” said Banerjee.
An San completed a hat-trick of gold medals at Tokyo 2020 as she finished on the podium in the mixed team, women’s individual recurve and women’s team events respectively.