World Archery Championships: Indian women's recurve team loses to Belarus, misses out on Tokyo 2020 quota

The loss implies that now only one Indian woman archer can qualify for the Olympic Games.

Deepika Kumari was a member of the Indian women's recurve team which lost out on an Olympic quota at the World Archery Championships in Den Bosch, the Netherlands.

The Indian women's recurve team (Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram and Bari Komalika) slumped to a 6-2 loss against Belarus to crash out of the Tokyo 2020 quota race at the World Archery Championships in Den Bosch, the Netherlands, on Wednesday.

11th seeded Team Belarus, which included Karyna Kazlouskaya, Karyna Dziominskaya and Hanna Marusava, got off to a confident start bagging the first two set points with a score of 52-43. The second set saw a similar outcome as well, with Belarus putting up a scoreline of 52-44 on the scoreboard. The third set, however, went in favour of the Indians who eked out a 53-51 victory. The fourth set, however, again went in favour of Team Belarus 53-51 as India ended up shooting a 7 off its last attempt, unable to force a shoot-off on its opponent.

This loss implies that India would have to eye a top-three finish in a final qualification tournament at the Berlin stage of the World Cup in 2020. Only nations which do not already have quotas are able to compete in the final qualification tournament.

Earlier today, the Indian men's recurve team thumped Canada 5-3 to bag a full three-member quota for the 2020 Olympic Games.