Archer Deepika Kumari blames ‘windy conditions’ after India’s ouster

TIL Desk Sports/ After failing to deliver when it mattered most, India’s ace archer Deepika Kumari blamed the 4-5 defeat to Russia in the quarter-finals of the women’s recurve competition at the Rio Olympics on windy conditions. After the two teams were tied at 4-4, having won two sets each, the Russian trio of Tuiana Dashidorzhieva, Ksenia Perova and Inna Stepanova held their nerve in the shoot-off to prevail 25-23 and advance to the semi-finals.

The Russians went on to make it to the final, but were halted in their stride by the Koreans, who won their eighth successive Olympic gold with a 5-1 victory. Korea have never lost a gold medal match since the inception of the sport in Seoul. Deepika needed to score a perfect 10 off the final shot but the highly-rated Jharkhand archer could only manage an 8 under floodlights at the Sambodromo arena.

Strong southern winds of about 37 km/h at the historical Samba Street made matters worse for both the teams but it was the Indians who were affected the most as they finished sixth. “We tried our best, and all of us gave 100 per cent but it’s really disappointing to lose this way, once again. It was very windy was kind of blowing away us,” Deepika said.