India cuts Olympic squad to 16

Married couple and Olympians Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari headline the list of 16 archers – eight men and eight women – who have been selected for the last Indian national training camp ahead of the final phase of trials in March.

The penultimate selection event took place on 18-22 January at the Army Sports Institute in Pune.

Twelve recurve men and 12 recurve women participated. They were ranked on the results of two events; the first comprised four 72-arrow, 70-metre rounds, and the second was a round-robin head-to-head, which had bonuses for good and penalties for poor match performances. 

Das and Kumari stood out in latter, each winning nine of their 11 matches.

Experienced internationals Jayanta Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai and Bombayla Devi Laishram also made the squad, as well as reigning under-18 world champion Komalika Bari.

Twenty-four compound archers were also selected.

The final phase of trials, which will select the Indian team for the 2021 Hyundai Archery World Cup season and the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, will take place on 5-8 March, also in Pune.

India finished second in the recurve men’s team event at the last world championships and has four quota places – three men and one woman – qualified to Tokyo 2020.

The last chance for the squad to augment its allocation to the full six, adding the final two women’s places, will be during the final qualification tournament being held alongside the third stage of the 2021 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Paris in June.

Indian squad

Recurve men: Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai, Pravin Ramesh Jadhav, Kapil Saini, Jayanta Talukdar, Dhiraj Bommadevara, Yashdeep Bhoge and Shukmani Gajanan Babrekar.

Recurve women: Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat, Bombayla Devi Laishram, Komalika Bari, Madhu Vedwan, Sangeeta, Ridhi and Baria Premilaben.

Compound men: Abhishek Verma, Rajat Chauhan, Aman Saini, Praveen Kumar, Sangampreet Singh Bisla, Mohan Ramswaroop Bhardwaj, Rishabh Yadav, Mayank Rawat, Sukhbeer Singh, Rahul Banerjee, Arjun and Chinna Raju Srither.

Compound women: Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Raginee Marko, Rekha Landkar, Muskan Kirar, Riya Gurjar, Swati Dudhwal, Trisha Deb, Saachi Dhalla, Anuradha Ahurwar, Akshita, Arshiya Chaudhary and Pragati.