Archery, Olympics 2024: Fourth place for Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat, but plenty to cheer

Archery is a sport of fine margins, and a spot of luck. The margins become finer when you compete against the best in the sport at the Olympic Games. The Indians in Paris learnt it the hard way.

Dhiraj Bommadevara lost his men’s individual quarter-final match to Eric Peters of Canada in a shoot-off despite both archers shooting a 10 – the Indian’s arrow was 24 milimetres further from the centre of the target compared to Peters’ attempt. Bommadevara had a wry smile on his face as he calmly packed up his bow and left the arena.

Also in a shoot-off, Deepika Kumari won her Round of 64 match against Reena Parnat of Estonia in the women’s individual event because her arrow (just hitting the line between 8 and 9) was closer to the centre than Parnat’s (who shot 8).

However, five days later on Friday, both Ankita Bhakat and Bommadevara wrote themselves into the annals of Indian archery history when they beat Spain to reach the semi-finals of the mixed team event. This was the first time that India had progressed to the semi-finals in any archery event at the Olympics.

They would be undone by two-time champions South Korea in the semi-final and ultimately lose to the United States...

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