Maintaining consistency would be the key for Jadhav while Das and Rai would look to step up the momentum.
“He is a calm and composed shooter but lacks experience. Hopefully his mixed team exposure would put him in good stead,” India chief coach Mim Bahadur Gurung was quoted by PTI.
If they get past the first round hurdle, the men’s trio will face top seed Korea who have got a bye into the last-eight.
Deepika and Jadhav had failed to live up to the hyped build-up to the Olympics, making a quarterfinal exit in the mixed pair competition on Saturday, an event considered their stronghold.
Many saw the loss against an ordinary-looking Korea as a tactical blunder after the Indian think-tank broke up husband-wife pair of Das and Deepika, who were coming off after winning a World Cup gold medal in Paris less than a month ago. Olympic debutant Jadhav was preferred ahead of Das on the basis of his ranking round score. Jadhav and Deepika shot together for the first time ever, that too at the biggest stage of the Olympics.
Deepika herself sounded upset and was visibly down, failing to hit a single 10 to lose an easy match against Korea who fielded a young team with a combined age of 37. Deepika will have a tricky first round opponent in Bhutan’s flag bearer Karma who made the cut during 2019 Asian continental qualification to become the first-ever athlete from her country to get an Olympic quota in any sport.
Karma, who is ranked a lowly 193 in the world, secured 56th place in the ranking round. If she overcomes the first round hurdle, Deepika is likely to face the biggest challenge of the individual round in the form of Korean An San who topped the ranking round, breaking a 25-year-old Olympic record.
The 20-year-old Korean had defeated Deepika at the same venue two years ago, in the final of the ‘Tokyo 2020 Test Event’.
– Date: 26-07-2021 Venue: Yumenoshima Final Field
Tokyo Olympics TV coverage: Archery Men’s Team 1/8 Eliminations
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