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The official start of Paris Olympics 2024 is from July 26 but a day before that, Indian archers will start their campaign from Thursday. India has not yet won an Olympic medal in archery and now Indian archers will start their campaign with the qualification round at Les Invalides Gardens.
Veterans Tarundeep Rai and Deepika Kumari are competing in their fourth Olympics and the team led by them will have to finish at least in the top-10 in the qualification to make it to the selection draw but so far not a single archer has been able to finish on the podium. This is the first time since the 2012 London Olympics that all six players have been included in the Indian team. The Indian men's and women's teams have qualified for the Olympics on the basis of rankings, due to which India will be able to participate in all five events this time.
Seeding will be given on the basis of merit
Each archer will shoot 72 arrows at the target and seedings for the main knockout competition starting Sunday will be based on the scores of the 128 archers from 53 countries participating in the qualification round. The qualification stage will be crucial for the Indian team, which has been consistently seeded low and will face strong teams like South Korea in the knockout stage.
Male archers performed disappointingly in Tokyo
All of India's male archers failed to make it to the top 30 at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, giving India a seeding of nine. India's only female archer Deepika finished ninth. India lost to top-ranked Korea in the quarterfinal match. This time the hope is from the Indian men's team, which created history by defeating Korea in the World Cup final in Shanghai this year. Apart from Tarundeep, the Indian team also has an experienced archer in the form of Praveen Jadhav. Young player Dheeraj Bommdevara won the bronze medal a month ago at the Antalya World Cup by defeating Italy's Toksoy Olympic silver medalist Mauro Nespoli.
Deepika and Dheeraj can win medals in mixed team
If Dheeraj and Deepika top the ranking round, they can be expected to win a medal in the recurve mixed team. Indian archers have not yet progressed beyond the quarter-finals in the Olympics. India failed to qualify only for the Sydney Olympics 2000 in archery. Apart from this, India has participated in archery in all the Olympics but has not been able to improve its performance.
All eyes will be on Deepika
In the women's category, all eyes will be on Deepika Kumari, who won a silver medal at the first stage of the World Cup in Shanghai less than 16 months after becoming a mother. She is joined by Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur in the women's team. This is the first Olympics for both of them, but they are part of the Indian team in the current Olympic cycle and will be expected to give a medal-winning performance.