Indian recurve archer, Bhajan Kaur, won the first Paris Olympics quota spot in women’s recurve archery after she won a gold medal at Final World Archery Olympic Qualifier in Antalya, Turkey, on Sunday.
She put up an excellent show throughout the tournament and continued that form in the final as well. She shot as many as seven 10s against the top seeded Iranian shooter Mobina Fallah.
Bhajan was visibly delighted with her qualification to the Paris Olympics. She now wants to dedicate all her focus to the 2024 Paris Olympics and is eager to put some extreme effort in training.
“I’m very happy today that I won the quota and the gold medal for my country, and now I want to repeat this performance at the Paris Olympics,” boasted Bhajan.
“The most positive thing is that I was confident that we can do this and eventually I got the result,” an elated Bhajan said.
This tournament was the final qualifier for archers which offered eight Paris Olympics quota places (one per NOC).
India had two of their archers in the top 8 as Bhajan alongside Ankita made it to the quarterfinals.
But Ankita lost (4-6) in a very close quarterfinal match to the same Iranian player, Mobina, ruining her chances to secure a Paris berth.
Earlier, second seeded Deepika Kumari, suffered a major upset as she lost (4-6) to Azerbaijan’s archer, Yaylagul Ramazanova in the Round of 32.
Bhajan’s quota also assured India of a mixed team quota spot in the Paris Olympics as the country have already secured a men’s individual quota spot, won by Dhiraj Boomadevara last year at the Asian Qualifiers.
Meanwhile, the Indian recurve archers will be highly disappointed with their performance as they missed out on both the team quota spots at the event, despite being one of the favourites heading into the competition.
However, all is not over for them as both the teams are in pretty comfortable position to enter the Olympics through the world ranking quota places.
The Indian men’s team are ranked second in the world and unofficially have their team quota confirmed as there is no other team who can overtake them with just one World Cup remaining before the final rankings are out.
Meanwhile, the Indian women’s team have to find a good result at the Antalya World Cup to confirm their spot or may have to depend on the performances of other countries.
India had won four quota spots at the Tokyo Olympics as the women’s team failed to secure a team quota