India's quest to end the medal drought in archery at Olympics will begin on Friday when the women's team ranking round gets underway in the Brazilian capital.
India have never won a medal in Archery in the Games and their best finish so far in the tournament have been a quarterfinal outing, which the country managed in 2004 and 2008 when the women reached the last-8 in the team event. No Indian has ever made it to the quarterfinal stage in the individual event.
With the men's team failing to qualify for Rio, the troika of eves Deepika Kumari, laishram Bombayla Devi and laxmi Rani Majhi will be tasked to lead the Indian charge for the country's first ever medal in Olympic Games. Atanu Das is the sole male archer to qualify for the Games.
The women's team ranking round would take place on Friday, while the eliminations are scheduled for August 7. The team final is slated to be held early on August 8. The Indian women would strive to keep their arrows on target in the individual elimination matches from August 8, with the final fixed for the early hours of August 12.
After Aug 5 men's individual ranking competition, Das would shoot in the elimination rounds on August 8. The gold medal would be decided on August 13.
The contingent has been training at the Marica , which is close to the archery venue in Sambodromo. But now they have finally taken shelter in the Olympic Village ahead of the eight-day competition where 128 archers from 56 countries would participate. All these participants will compete across the four events — the men's individual, women's individual, men's team and women's team.
India had a disastrous outing last time around in london Games. The six-member team was ousted very early from the competition. Almost everyone fell ill during the tournament as they failed to get accustomed to the cold weather after practising in humid conditions in Kolkata. But this time the Archery Association of India (AAI) had sent the team to Brazil almost a month back so that they did not have problems of acclimatisation. They also trained in Bangalore prior to flying in here, as weather conditions are identical.
Deepika and Bombayla will look to put things right after the 2012 disappointment.
last time, Deepika, Bombayla and Chekrovolu Swuro lost to Denmark by a point in their very first match. Deepika's nightmare continued in the individual event as well, losing to Amy Oliver of Great Britain in her first match.
Debutants Majhi and Atanu would have to deal with the pressure of delivering on the big stage. However, India's biggest hopes are pinned on the women's team event where Bombayla would shoot first followed by Majhi and Deepika will play the role of finisher.
Archers to skip ceremony
Focused on winning their first ever Olympic medal, the Indian archers will give Friday's much-awaited opening ceremony of the Rio Games a miss. "We've a hectic schedule tomorrow and we cannot afford any slip-up in the crucial ranking round. We will catch it (opening ceremony) on TV," Indian chief archery coach Dharmendra Tiwari told PTI on the sidelines of their last practice session at Sambodromo.
Korean threat
Korea will once again be the team to beat at the Summer Games. They are ranked the best in the world and the total number of medals they have won Olympic Games so far is 34, including 18 golds. The Korean women still remain unbeaten in the team event and are confident that they will be able to clinch the eighth consecutive team Gold at Rio. Among the others, Ki Ho Bae and Kim Woojin will be the archers to keep an eye on. China and Japan can offer Korea a stiff challenge at the Archery events.