Mangal Singh Champia earned India an individual Olympic quota berth, while Rajat Chauhan and laxmirani Majhi remained in the gold and bronze medal hunt in the World Archery Championships on Thursday. The 31-year-old former Olympian secured an individual berth for the 2016 Rio-bound squad when he entered the recurve quarterfinals defeating sixth seed Antonio Fernandez of Spain 6-2.
India have also secured a team quota berth in the women’s section.
Champia however lost out on medal contention after bowing to Elias Malave of Venezuela 4-6 as the 2008 Beijing Olympian surrendered a 2-4 lead for a last eight exit.
After the men’s team failed to earn a quota earlier, the Jharkhand marksman kept India’s Olympic hopes alive as he began his day ousting another Spaniard Miguel Alvarino Garcia in the last 32.
Champia lost the first and third set to trail 2-4 before making a glorious comeback aided by some luck en route to a 6 -4 win. Having shot two perfect 10s, the Spaniard misfired in the third end of fourth set for a poor one while Champia shot two 10s and one nine to make it 4-4.
Garcia had another string of failures in the fifth set while Champia held on to the momentum and shot 10, 9, 9 to clinch the issue.