Atanu Das secured qualification for the Round of 32 as he finished fifth in men’s recurve ranking round of Archery. Scoring 59 in the eleventh round he stood at the seventh position and had just one round left. He impressed the critics by eventually rising up the ladder scoring 58 and with a combined score of 683.
Archery began today with men’s individual event even before the official opening ceremony of Rio 2016. This will be followed by men’s team event, women’s individual and team later in the day. Unfortunately, Indian archers will have to give the opening a miss as it follows a line-up of these events. This feat was much needed for Indian Archery especially after a tragic end to the London Olympics in 2012. They hope to turn fortunes this time around by giving time only to the game and avoiding any media interaction.
Atanu Das in his maiden event at the Olympics was sure to spring a surprise and get ahead in the game right since the very beginning. Having won the berth over India’s finest archers and former Olympians Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia he could not have let go off this opportunity, also since he is the lone surviving hero in the men’s category from India. With a world ranking of 22, Atanu may not be best placed to bag a medal, but a spot in the final round could be a possible target.
He started his first round with a score of 58 which also happened to be his last round score. Das went up the notch particularly after performing unsatisfactorily in the seventh round which put him much lower in ranks. However, there was no looking back the next round onwards as the curve only went rising up.
Woojin Kim of South Korea stood first after a series of 12 rounds and created a record with a score of 700 which previously stood at 699 by Im Dong-hyun also from South Korea in the London Olympics
David Pasqualucci and Sjef Van Der Berg stand second and third respectively.