Bhajan Kaur wins gold, India bag quota in women's individual recurve for Paris Olympics

Bhajan Kaur won a gold medal as India bagged a quota place in the women’s individual recurve archery event for the Paris Olympics on Sunday in Antalya, Turkey. By progressing to the quarterfinals, Ankita Bhakat had already ensured quota for India.

There were eight individual quota places up for grabs at the tournament with a maximum of one individual quota for each country.

By virtue of the quota in women’s individual event, India have also made it to the mixed team event due to Dhiraj Bommadevara’s quota in the men’s section.

Kaur Bhajan takes GOLD and QUOTA ticket for India at the Final Olympic Qualifier. 🥇🤩#ArcheryInParis pic.twitter.com/bjJjTxUvdl

In the final, Kaur beat Mobina Fallah of Iran, who had accounted for Bhakat in the quarter-final, 6-2 (28-26, 29-29, 29-26, 29-29).

Kaur had come into the final after staging 6-0 and 6-2 wins in the last-eight and the last-four against Wioleta Myszor and Alexandra Mirca respectively.

The 18-year-old archer, who had earned a third seed, got byes in both first and second rounds. In the third round she beat Urantungalag Bishindee of Mongolia 6-2 (29-27, 28-26, 26-29, 27-24).

In the pre-quarters she beat Urska Cavic of Slovenia 7-3 (28-22, 29-18, 28-28, 26-27, 27-24).

Bhakat, meanwhile, after earning the ninth seed, got a bye in the first round. She registered 6-4 (24-26, 25-25, 28-20, 25-25, 27-25) and 7-3 (28-25, 25-27, 27-27, 28-25, 26-25) victories over Israel’s Shelley Hilton and Mikaella Moshe in the second and third rounds, respectively.

India books a recurve woman ticket to the Paris 2024 Olympics. 🤩🇮🇳#ArcheryInParis Final Olympic Qualifier pic.twitter.com/NPQkIIwFwL

Playing for the quota place, Bhakat beat Gabrielle Monica Bidaure of the Philippines 6-0 (26-23, 28-22, 28-23) in the fourth round.

Elsewhere, it was an embarassing exit for Deepika Kumari, going down to little known Yaylagul Ramazanova of Azerbaijan. Having qualified as the second seed, the much fancied archer won the opening two sets to lead 4-0, but her shooting went awry in the next two sets where she scored 23 and 24 points respectively, landing five of her six arrows in the outer rings.

She shot thrice in the eight-point red ring, once in the seven-point red ring and while another hit the outer six-point ring as Yaylagul gleefully brought it level before 4-4.

The Azerbaijan archer then won the fifth set with a solid display and seal a splendid win 6-4 (26-28, 25-27, 23-26, 24-25, 27-29).

Earlier in the competition, the men’s team had qualified as top seeds but lost to Mexico in the quarterfinals. The women’s team, who got fifth seed in the rankings round, exited in the pre-quarters.

But they can still qualify for the Paris Games if they maintain their World Rankings till the cutoff date of 24 June.

The top two nations from among the countries who have not earned team quotas will make the cut after the third stage of the World Cup, which starts on Tuesday.

India will have to put up a good show to maintain their rankings.

The men’s team is currently No. 2 with 243 points behind South Korea who have already qualified.

Chinese Taipei and Italy, who are behind India in the rankings, have already qualified. India’s nearest competitors are China (204 points) and Japan (190).

The women’s team is currently No. 8 behind South Korea, China, Germany, France, Mexico, USA and Chinese Taipe – all these seven nations have already got team quotas.

It means the Indian women’s team with 185 points are at the top in the rankings race with Indonesia (179.5), Colombia (152), Italy (150) vying for the second spot.

(with inputs from PTI)