Indian archers miss World Cup medals, but eye Olympic team quotas

ANTALYA: Indian recurve archery outfits produced a sloppy show and failed to win a medal in the World Cup Stage 3 here on Thursday, but they have closed in on Paris Olympics team quotas based on world rankings.

In the Stage 3 competition, Indian women finished fourth while men progressed till the last 16 and now they will have to wait till Monday for the official list based on the rankings to be announced by the World Archery.

As per a new rule, rankings allow berths to the top two countries who have not secured quotas from the Olympic Qualifiers. Antalya had hosted the Final Olympic Qualifier ahead of this meet.

Having already secured men's and women's individual quotas through Dhiraj Bommadevara and Bhajan Kaur, India needed to finish well in the team events to maintain their top-two rankings, among the non-qualified nations, to make the cut.

The team quotas will allow India to compete in all the five events -- men's and women's team, individual and mixed team events -- at the Paris Games next month.

The Indian men's team are world No. 2, behind South Korea who have already qualified.

The women are No. 8, with the top seven countries (South Korea, China, Germany, France, Mexico, USA and Chinese Taipei) having already secured their quotas from the Qualifiers.

The World Cup Stage 3 was the final chance for the non-qualified nations to make the cut based on their rankings.

The women's trio of Bhajan, Deepika Kumari and Ankita Bhakat almost assured their qualification, defeating Ukraine 5-3 (53-52, 53-54, 57-54, 53-53) to enter the semifinals.

In the semis, they lost to Olympics hosts France 4-5 (52-59, 56-57, 58-55, 57-53) (25-28) in the shoot-off.

In the bronze medal play-offs, the Indians shot woefully and lost to Japan in straight sets 0-6 (51-55, 53-54, 53-54).

The men's team of Dhiraj, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav lost to Netherlands 1-5 (58-58, 53-54, 57-58) in the pre-quarterfinals.