look news india
New Delhi, July 25 (HS). India will finally begin its Paris Olympics journey on Thursday with the archery team led by Deepika Kumari and Tarundeep Rai taking their first shot at a medal in the ranking round at Les Invalides.
For the first time since the London Olympics 2012, India will field its full squad of six archers, who will challenge in all five medal events in the men's team/individual, women's team/individual and mixed team categories.
This round will be crucial for how far Indian archery can go during this Olympics, as the performance of each of the six archers over 72 arrows will determine the seedings for the individual and team events.
For the men's and women's team competitions, the top four seeded teams from the ranking round will receive direct quarterfinal qualification and the teams seeded eighth to 12th will face each other in the quarterfinal round.
The rankings will also determine who places in the mixed team competition, with only the top 16 pairs qualifying for the next stage.
With each country fielding one male and female archer, the top scores in the men's and women's categories are combined to determine the team seedings.
This will be Deepika Kumari's fourth Olympic appearance and first after becoming a mother.
Similarly, Tarundeep is also playing his fourth Olympics while teammate Pravin Jadhav is making his second appearance after Tokyo 2020. The rest three, Dheeraj Bommadevara, Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat are experiencing the Olympics for the first time.
Indian archers have never won an Olympic medal. The archery competition at Paris 2024 will begin with the individual ranking round on July 25, a day before the opening ceremony. The remaining stages will be held at Les Invalides from July 28 to August 4.