Rio Olympics: Atanu Das Shines in Ranking Round as Women Archers Struggle
Atanu Das finished fifth in the ranking round of the men's individual archery event, while female counterparts Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi ranked 20th, 24th and 43th, respectively, in the women's event
Highlights
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Atanu Das finished fifth with a score of 683 in individual ranking round
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Atanu's female counterparts struggled in their individual ranking rounds
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Deepika, Bombayla and Laxmirani ranked 20th, 24th and 43rd, respectively
Indian archer Atanu Das made an impressive start in men's individual archery event at Rio Olympics on Friday, after finishing 5th in the ranking round at Sambodromo.
Atanu Das started with a solid 58, but a 53 in the second round saw him slip to the 24th spot. However, Das fought back from the 2nd round blip to climb back up the table in the subsequent rounds.
Das finished with an impressive 683 to finish fifth to move into the next round of the event. Meanwhile, Kim Woojin of South Korea set a new World and Olympic record with a score of 700/720.
Das has an easy draw till the quarterfinals and his prospective semifinal opponent may be the fourth ranked Dutch man Sjef van den Berg who won the World Cup individual gold in Shanghai.
Das's promising finish also meant he was ahead of London 2012 silver medalist Takaharu Furukuwa, the Japanese finished seventh and are in the bottom half of the draw.
On a sunny day without any wind, Das taking mark for his first ever Olympics shot a promising 58 that included four perfect 10s including two closest to the centre (X) to match the Korean heavyweight who also had begun with 58 with an identical four perfect 10s.
But the inexperienced Indian struggled to get another perfect 10 in the second set of six arrows that yielded just 53 points with five 9s and one eight to slip from the fine start. Das gradually improved and finished in style nine perfect 10s out of the last 12 arrows.
In the women's individual ranking round, Deepika Kumari made a number uncharacteristic errors to finish 20th with a score of 640. Bombayla Devi finished four places below Deepika with a score of 638.
Laxmirani Majhi, on the other hand, ranked 43rd after scoring 614.
Deepika will face 45th ranked Kristine Esebua of Georgia, while Bombayla will take on 41st ranked Laurence Baldauff of Austria and Laxmirani's first round challenger would be Alexandra Longova of Slovakia.
In the women's team ranking round, India were placed 7th with a combined total score of 1892.
A top four-finish would have given them a bye to the quarters but the Indian women's team, who shot 1892 points together, will begin the elimination stage from the first round of 16 on August 7.
With inputs from PTI