Indian women's archery team on Sunday narrowly missed a place in the semifinals after losing 23-25 to Russia in a nail-biting shoot-off. Russia will now face Italy in semifinals.
Just like the World Championsships last year, India yet again went down to Russia.
After leading the pack 4-2 at one stage, Indian women stumbled, allowing the Russians to crawl back to make it 4-4. In the shoot-off, Indians eventually lost.
Earlier, India made it to the quarter-finals of the recurve event after beating Colombia 5-3 at the Olympic Games, here on Sunday.
Indian women archers would feel relieved especially Deepika Kumari and laishram Bombayla Devi, who were a part of the team that lost to Denmark in the opening round at the 2012 london Games.
Indian women will face Russian Federation in the quarterfinal. The trio of Deepika, laxmirani Majhi and Bombayla were not at their best but managed to prevail over an even more erratic Colombian team.
The two teams were on even keel at 3-3 after first three sets and the turning point came in the final set.
Needing 28 points with final three arrows to beat India's set score of 52, Colombian archer Caroline Aguirre committed a harakiri as she lost control and the misdirected arrow fetched her only 3 points, much to the relief of the Indian camp.
The Indians won the set by 52-44, thereby getting the crucial two points for winning the set and taking an unassailable 5-3 lead. However, it wasn't a great performance from the Indian girls as they could hit the perfect 10 only twice — Bombayla in the first set and Deepika in the 3rd set. Deepika, India's biggest hope in archery, was not in her elements as she started off poorly hitting a 7 with the final arrow of the first set, which India managed to pip the opposition by a point.