2024 Paris Olympics: After woeful show in the Olympic Qualifiers, World Ranking to rescue Indian recurve archery teams

Although the Indian women’s and men’s recurve archery teams failed to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics through the qualifiers, their world ranking of eight would, in all probability, assure them of a berth at the prestigious Games.

The Indian women recurve archers, Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur, came up with an underwhelming performance at Stage 3 of the Olympic Qualification tournament and ended up on the losing side and finishing fourth.

However, when the official rankings are released on Monday next, the Indian women’s recurve archery team can seal a berth at the 2024 Paris Olympics, based on their world ranking of eight.

The Indian men’s recurve team comprising Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav lost in the pre quarterfinals but their world ranking of two, behind powerhouse South Korea, will assure them of a berth at the Olympics.

As per the new rule, rankings allow berths to the top two countries that have not secured quotas from the Olympic Qualifiers. The top two on the list of non qualified nations will make it to the Olympics.

The Indian men ranked second, while the Indian women’s team ranked eighth, with seven countries ahead of them already qualified.

The team quotas will allow India to compete in all five events—the men’s and women’s teams, individual and mixed team events—at the Paris Olympics 2024.

In Stage 3 of the Olympic Qualifiers at Antalya, the women’s team beat Ukraine 5-3 (53-52, 53-54, 57-54, 53-53) in the quarterfinals but lost to France 4-5 (52-59, 56-57, 58-55, 57-53) (25-28) in the semifinals after taking the match to a shoot-off.

In the bronze medal play-offs, the Indians looked completely clueless, were completely at bay and were outplayed by Japan in straight sets 0-6 (51-55, 53-54, 53-54).

In the same tournament, the men’s recurve team lost to the Netherlands 1-5 (58-58, 53-54, 57-58) in the pre-quarterfinals.