In-form Indian archers at touching distance from Olympic medal

Bolstered by their best-ever show in the ranking rounds, Indian archers will look to end a 36-year-long wait for an Olympic medal when they take aim in the medal rounds that will get underway with the women's finals in Paris on Sunday.

Indian archery fraternity can hope for multiple medals from the historic Les Invalides arena following Dhiraj Bommadevara (seeded fourth) and Ankita Bhakat's (11th) exploits in the qualifiers.

For the first time after 12 years, India have a full six-member contingent as they vie for medals in all the five categories -- mixed team, men's and women's team, and individual events.

Having seeded straight to the quarters, the men's and women's teams need two wins to land a historic first Olympic medal in archery since the event debuted at the 1988 Seoul Games.

India, who have never crossed the quarter-final hurdles in the Olympics, mostly falling to archery powerhouse South Korea, will avoid their nemesis first up.

While the men's team can avoid them till the gold medal clash, the women's may collide with Korea in the semi-finals.

India will take on the winners of France and the Netherlands in women's team quarter-finals on Sunday.

Shooting in front of home support, France, who were ranked fifth in the qualifiers, will be the overwhelming favourites to be India's quarter-final opponents.

All eyes would be on the trio of Ankita Bhakat, Bhajan Kaur and Deepika Kumari and how they soak in the pressure in front of a partisan crowd.

The Indian women's team seemed to be ahead of the French rivals, having shot 1983 with an average of 9.18 compared to the hosts' 1972 (at 9.13).

France's Lisa Barbelin, Amelie Cordeau and Caroline Lopez are also familiar rivals for the Indians, having defeated them 3-2 in a friendly match at their preparatory camp in Jaux, 80kms north of Paris.

It was in Paris at the World Cup Stage 3 in 2021, the Indian women's team had defeated France in the semi-final en route to winning a gold.

Ankita and Deepika were part of the gold medal-winning Indian team with Bhajan replacing Komalika Bari here and they may take inspiration from that match three years ago.

India's most experienced woman archer Deepika, the former world No 1, had her worst ranking round from four Olympics, finishing lowly 23rd.

She struggled to get her 10s, managing just 28 perfect scores from 72 arrows and landed her arrows in the five and six rings on two occasions.

Deepika will once again play the role of a finisher and it will all boil down to how she brings her best in the crunch moment.

She has won a World Cup silver this year in Shanghai, making an incredible comeback less than 18 months after becoming mother.

If the women's trio manage to get going as a team then there would be no stopping them for a medal.

MEN'S TEAM MOST FANCIED

Games debutant Dhiraj's red-hot form and the combined five-Olympics appearance of Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav, who was in Tokyo too, makes the Indian men's team the most fancied to win a medal. The men's finals is scheduled on Monday.

At the Shanghai World Cup, they had historically upset the Koreans for the first time to win a gold.

Ranked third in the qualification round, India may face Turkey in the quarter-finals. The two teams have not met in the recent past and the challenge would be to conquer an unfamiliar opposition.

But for that to happen, sixth seeds Turkey, who boasts of reigning Olympic champion Mete Gazoz, will have to first need to get past 11th ranked Colombia in the pre-quarters.

The qualification round average arrow score for the men's team is an impressive 9.32 -- only Korea (9.49) and France (9.38) scored higher than them.

As far as Turkey are concerned they have not done well as a team and India should sail past them without much fuss.

France, who will take on the winners of Italy and Kazakhstan, the two lowly-ranked teams, are likely to be India's semifinal opposition if they manage to overcome Turkey.

India are seeded fifth as a mixed team where Ankita will partner Dhiraj and they will face an easy opening round against Indonesia who are seeded a lowly 12th.

They are in the same pool with China and Korea, who might be their potential quarterfinal and semifinal opponents respectively, should they progress.

Mixed team finals are slated on August 2.

In peak form, Dhiraj will also hope to make it count in the individual rounds, where Deepika could also throw some surprises.

Dhiraj botched up his release twice in the quarters to return empty-handed from the Asian Games individual event and he would look to overcome the disappointment.

The individual elimination round will be held between Tuesday and Thursday, followed by the women's finals on August 3 and men's final on August 4.

• THE OLYMPICS, 2024