Indian superstar Deepika Kumari finished second in the qualifying round at Wroclaw 2015 with 658 points - but despite this, wasn’t too impressed.
“It’s not really a good score for me,” she said. “I can do better. It was really windy, not too complicated, but strong enough to be difficult".
One year ago, at Wroclaw 2014, she shot 678 out of a possible 720 points during qualifiying.
Kumari should have good memories of her competition history in Poland. She won a team gold here last year, and fought through a strong field to finish in the individual bronze medal position, after taking mixed team bronze, too. After a tough year, the fourth and last stop on the Archery World Cup circuit in 2014 was her first international podium since the Paris 2013 Archery World Cup Final.
At the world champs in Copenhagen, the team of Laxmirani Majhi, Rimil Buriuly and Kumari qualified second, gained a full team place for Rio by beating Germany, and then went on to beat Colombia and win a shoot-off against Japan with a maximum-score tiebreaker set of 30 points.
This set the Indian trio up for a final against Russia that, again, went to a shoot-off – but the Russians won by just a single point.
Despite the stronger form shown she’s shown during the 2014 season, Deepika, who has apparently recently increased her bow weight to 42 pounds, says she always shoots her best in competition.
“For me it’s not really important where the tournament is. It’s just about my performance and my confidence. I’m always trying to get better,” she said.
The Indian women's recurve team qualified in second place behind the USA in Wroclaw. Kumari is also set to shoot in the mixed team event with Mangal Singh Champia. The pair will start the eliminations as the third seeds.
