Decent showing in elite events helped Indian men and women teams’ qualification for Paris 2024

The improved showing of the men and women teams in some major events, including World Cup Stage and Asian Games medals and top-eight finishes in the World championships last year, eventually contributed to their qualification.

B. Dhiraj of India in action. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

The plan to make the Indian archers’ compete in various events in the last one year finally proved beneficial with both men and women teams qualifying for the Olympics after 12 years.

Before this, India had fielded full men and women archery teams in the 2012 London Olympics. One male archer, Atanu Das, and the women’s team had qualified for 2016 Rio Olympics, while the men’s team and one female archer, Deepika Kumari, had made it to the Tokyo Olympics.

Before the two teams’ qualification, B. Dhiraj was the lone archer who had booked an individual slot through the qualifiers.

While the coaching staff worked on small technical improvements of the archers, who were put through rigorous selection trials, the effort was on to earn direct qualification through different qualifying events.

However, considering the possibility that the archers might crumble under pressure, and might not be able to book team quotas for Paris 2024, the Archery Association of India (AAI) had made plans for the archers, divided in teams for global and continental events, to compete and accumulate world ranking points.

As India could not get team quota places through qualifiers, its decent results in different events helped the sides make it to the Olympics through world rankings.

As per the latest rankings issued by World Archery, after the conclusion of the Archery World Cup Stage-3 in Antalya, Indian men and women teams were placed at the top among the sides which had not qualified for the Olympics.

Two teams per gender (including China in men and Indonesia in women) qualified for the Olympics through world rankings.

The improved showing of the men and women teams in some major events, including World Cup Stage and Asian Games medals and top-eight finishes in the World championships last year, eventually contributed to their qualification.

The men’s team gathered 238 points from the best four events – World Cup Stage-1 in Shanghai, 2024 (80 points), World Cup Stage-3 in Medellin, 2023 (56), World Cup Stage-1 in Antalya, 2023 (51) and Asian Games in Hangzhou, 2023 (51) to place at the top among non-qualified nations.

The Indian women collected points from World Cup Stage-4 in Paris, 2023 (56), World Cup Stage-3 in Antalya, 2024 (48), Berlin World Championships, 2023 (45) and Asian Games in Hangzhou, 2023 (42) to total 191. The team was also at the top among countries which had not qualified yet

In the elite men’s side, Dhiraj remained the most consistent and constant figure as Tarundeep Rai, Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav, Tushar Shelke and Mrinal Chauhan went in and out of the team based on their performances.

In the women’s team, it was mostly a combination of Ankita Bhakat, Bhajan Kaur and Simranjeet Kaur before Deepika Kumari returned to form and replace Simranjeet.

With team tickets booked for Paris, India can compete in all the five events – men and women individual and team events and mixed team.

Now the major challenge for the side is to help the archers handle pressure in match situations well.

AAI has decided to stick with the Dhiraj, Rai and Jadhav trio in the men’s team and the settled combination of Deepika, Ankita and Bhajan for women’s side.

Individually, Dhiraj, who recently toppled Italy’s Olympic silver medallist Mauro Nespoli for the World Cup Stage-3 bronze, inspires confidence for the Paris Games.

The Indian archers will train at Army Sports Institute, Pune, up to July 9 before moving to Paris for the final phase of preparations ahead of the Olympics.