Antalya (Turkey): The Indian men's recurve archery team of Tarundeep Rai, Dhiraj Bommadevara and Pravin Jadhav entered the 24-team elimination round as the top seed in the Final Olympic Qualifier here on Saturday.
The trio shot a total of 2018 points to claim the pole position in the leaderboard ahead of Chinese Taipei (2008) and Germany (1998). The top 24 cut the elimination round which is a draw of 32. A total of 46 teams competed. By finishing on top, India got a bye into the last-16 where they will face 17th seed Luxembourg.
The top three ranked nations in the elimination round will get the Paris Olympic quota places in the men's recurve team event. India will upgrade their individual quota to team quota should they finish in the top three. Dhiraj had bagged the individual quota earlier.
Menawhile, Indian men's archery team followed its women compatriots in failing to secure an Olympic quota from the Final Qualifier and will now have to rely on rankings to qualify for the quadrennial showpiece slated next month.
A day after Indian women suffered a shock defeat to Ukraine in the pre-quarters, the world No 2 men's team exited in the last-eight stage, going down to Mexico in the shoot-off in a dramatic fashion. The top-seed India lost 4-5 (57-56, 57-53, 55-56, 55-58) (26-26*).
The men's team event offered Olympic quotas to the top-three on the podium. The loss came as a rude reality check for the Indian Olympic medal hopefuls as they were leading 4-0 after winning first two sets comprehensively.
Needing just a draw in the third set to advance into the semi-final, India lost by a point as Mexico went on to level four-all after winning the fourth set and sealed it by shooting closer to the centre in the shoot-off.
Having qualified as the top-seed, India earlier defeated Luxembourg in straight sets. Both the men's and women's teams can still qualify based on their rankings ahead of the Paris Olympics cut-off date.
Read More
