Luck deserts Indian women archers at crucial moment

Bombayla Devi Laishram was the best shooter of the three scoring three 10s and just once hitting a 7 to keep India’s hopes alive till the end.

Majhi began poorly as she could not hit a 10 in the first two sets, which she lost.

Majhi was on the verge of elimination in the third set, but under huge pressure, she hit a 10 with her last arrow to tie the set.

The Indian women’s archery trio of Laxmirani Majhi, Bombayla Laishram and Deepika Kumari was eliminated from the team event at the Rio Olympics after losing to Russian Federation in the quarter-finals. It was another moment of reckoning where she scored only 9 thereby handing over the set to Russian Federation by a 55-54 margin which enabled them to take the match into the shoot-off round. Needing 28 points with final three arrows to beat Indias set score of 52, Colombian archer Caroline Aguirre committed a harakiri as she lost control and the misdirected arrow fetched her only 3 points, much to the relief of the Indian camp.

The other two Indian women – Deepika Kumari and Bombayla Devi – have their round of 64 matches on Wednesday.

The final set was then taken by India with an eight-point margin as the Colombians managed to score 44 points in response to India’s 52.

India fought back in the third set and tied with Colombia with 52-52.

Individually, Deepika finished 20th and Bombayla was 24th as they entered the Round of 32.

Earlier, India reached the quarters with a 205-197 victory over Colombia, after Deepika gave some scary moments at the Olympic Shooting Centre.

The gold winning Korean team had a small piece of advice for the Indian archers on how to tackle windy conditions.

“There was a lot of pressure of expectation but it did not affect us”. Wind played a strong part expecially in the afternoon session, quarterfinal onwards. “The organisation looks after all that”, she said.