India at Tokyo: Archer Deepika Kumari finishes 9th in ranking round

INDIA'S ace archer Deepika Kumari on Friday (23) finished ninth in the women’s ranking round as archery action started at the Tokyo Olympics hours ahead of its official opening. Deepika led her country’s campaign at the Games as she was the first Indian athlete to get involved in competitive action. She scored 663 while South Korea's An San created an Olympic record with a score of 680.

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The 27-year-old Ranchi born, who is currently the world No.1, had a shaky start as she managed 56 with three 10s in the first series of the first half. However, the experienced archery kept on recovering as the ranking round progressed. She looked favourite for a finish in the top six but a seven in the final arrow of the round saw her falling from seventh to ninth position.

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Deepika will face Bhutan’s Karma in the first round (round of 64) of the women’s individual recurve event, starting on July 27.

It may be mentioned here that the star archer, who won a record three golds at the Paris world cup recently, finished 20^th in the ranking round at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and eighth on her debut in the 2012 Games in London.

Atanu Das (Photo by Dean Alberga/World Archery Federation via Getty Images)

The ranking round will determine the seeding for the women’s individual and team competitions. Deepika is the only Indian woman archer in the fray at Tokyo Games.

For the mixed team event, only the top 16 teams will qualify. After finishing ninth, Deepika has a fair chance of progressing towards glory in this discipline.

In the men’s section, Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadav will be in action next and the archer finishing with the best score is likely to team up with Deepika in the mixed team event. Atanu, who is Deepika’s husband, was her partner when the duo won the mixed team gold at the Paris world cup in June.

The mixed team event is the first medal event in archery and the action gets underway on Saturday (24).