Archery World Cup: Days after missing out on Tokyo quota, Indian women’s recurve team reach final

Days after the heartbreak of missing out on their quota for Tokyo Olympic Games, the Indian women’s recurve archery team bounced back strongly to storm into the final of the World Cup Stage 3 in Paris on Friday.

The trio of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Komalika Bari had lost to lower-ranked Colombia on Sunday to miss the Olympic team qualification, but on Friday they just dropped a set in three matches combined, before defeating sixth-ranked France 6-2 in the semi-finals.

Unfortunately however, World Cup Stage 3 is not an Olympic qualifying tournament and this doesn’t impact the country’s quotas in Olympics where only Deepika Kumari will compete in the individual event along with the men’s team who have earned a full quota.

The trio, who had won the first stage of the World Cup in Guatemala City in April, will face Mexico on Sunday in a repeat of the first stage final.

World No 3 Deepika will be in the hunt for a hat-trick of gold medals. Deepika had earlier advanced to the mixed pair final with Atanu Das, while she is also in the semi-final of the recurve individual section.

The second-seeded Indian women’s team, which got a bye in the second round, started off by…

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