Indian women archery team reaches Paris, eyes top-3 finish to make Tokyo Olympics

Paris: Indian women’s archery team, led by former world number one Deepika Kumari, reached here on Monday to compete in their Final Olympic Qualification event on June 20.

The women’s trio of Deepika, Ankita Bhakat, and Komalika Bari will have to finish in top-3 to make the last available berth for the Tokyo Olympics which opens on July 23.

”The Indian women archers are going through a mandatory 10-day quarantine. They went ahead of the men’s team because of the Olympic qualifiers,” Archery Association of India assistant secretary Gunjan Abrol told PTI.

While the men’s team has secured the Olympic berth during the 2019 World Championships, India so far has an individual quota among women, achieved by Deepika at the Continental Qualifiers in Bangkok two years ago.

”The men’s recurve and compound teams will leave India on Tuesday,” Abrol said.

A week after the qualification event, both the teams will compete in the third stage of the World Cup.

Indian compound team had missed out on World Cup Stage 1 in Guatemala City following their head coach’s ”false positive report”.

In the absence of the compound team, the recurve archers came up with their best ever show in a World Cup, winning three gold medals in April.