How did the Indian men's and women's archery teams qualify for Paris Olympics 2024?
The Indian men’s and women’s recurve archery teams made the cut for the forthcoming Paris Olympics 2024 after the World Archery, the apex governing body, updated its rankings on the final qualifying day for the mega event in Paris on June 24.
Notably, the Indian men’s team was ranked second, while the women’s side was ranked eighth in the updated rankings. Both teams were on top of the rankings among non-qualified countries to qualify for the Games in Paris.
With India making entry into the team events, the Indian archers will participate in all five archery medal events namely Men’s individual, Women’s individual, Men’s team, Women’s team, and Mixed team event. It’s worth noting that in the Olympics, only recurve is the accepted form of archery.
India will field six archers at the Paris Olympics 20024. In Archery, a NOC can field three archers of each gender to compete in a team event, and all the selected archers can also compete in the individual events.
India fielded four archers at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Deepika Kumari was the sole participant in the individual women’s recurve event. Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav, and Tarundeep Rai competed in men’s individual recurve events and team events.
Dhiraj Bommadevara and Bhajan Kaur’s individual archery quotas were reassigned
Much before Indian teams bagged the quotas, recurve archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Bhajan Kaur secured individual quotas. While Dhiraj emerged as the first Indian archer to make the cut for the Paris Olympics after bagging a silver at the Asian Continental Qualifier in 2023, Bhajan bagged a gold medal in the Final World Quota Tournament in 2024.
Nevertheless, the team quotas meant that India’s two individual quotas, won by Dhiraj Bommadevara and Bhajan Kaur, were reassigned to countries that do not have a single quota.
Former World No. 1 archers Deepika Kumari and Tarundeep Rai will be competing in their fourth Olympic Games. Pravin Jadhav is taking part in his second Games after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Dhiraj Bommadevara, Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur are all set to make their Games debut at the Paris Olympics 2024.
Interestingly, this is the first time in 12 years India have secured men’s and women’s team quota in an edition of the Olympics.