Archer Bhajan Kaur Nabs Gold and Secures Paris Olympic Spot in Final Qualifier – News18

Bhajan Kaur clinched India an Olympic individual quota in style, winning a gold medal at the ‘Archery In Paris Final Olympic Qualifier’ here on Sunday.

Premier archer Deepika Kumari put up a woeful show to exit in her first match, but the inexperienced Bhajan grabbed the limelight by stunning top-seed Mobina Fallah of Iran without dropping a set to clinch the gold.

The third seeded Bhajan showed exceptional shooting to go all the way.

She defeated Mobina 6-2 (28-26, 29-29, 29-26, 29-29) in a one-sided final.

Her teammate Ankita Bhakat made a quarterfinal exit, but she also secured an individual Olympic quota by virtue of that last-eight entry.

The individual quotas are allotted to the top-eight nations. Each country gets one individual quota. India thus have secured individual quotas in both men’s and women’s sections.

Dhiraj Bommadevara had secured the men’s individual quota from the Asian qualifying leg earlier.

Bhajan, who got a bye into the round of 32, started off by overcoming Urantungalag Bishindee of Mongolia 6-2 (29-27, 28-26, 26-29, 27-24).

Bhajan later dropped one set but got the better of Urska Cavic of Slovenia 7-3 (28-22, 29-18, 28-28, 26-27,27-24) to make the last eight where she outclassed Wioleta Myszor 6-0 (30-28, 27-24, 30-28), shooting two perfect sets.

It was Mobina who ousted Ankita in the quarters with a hard-fought 6-4 win (27-27, 28-27, 27-29, 27-27, 29-28).

In the semis, Bhajan toppled Alexandara Mirca 6-2 (27-26, 28-27, 26-27, 27-26).

Ankita was the first to enter the quarters and confirm the quota when she outplayed Gabrielle Monica Bidaure of Philippines in the last-16.

Ninth seed Ankita cruised to a 6-0 (26-23, 28-22, 28-23) win over her 40th seeded rival in the pre-quarterfinals.

In the earlier rounds, Ankita had defeated Shelley Hilton 6-4 (24-26, 25-25, 28-20, 25-25, 27-25) and Mikaella Moshe 7-3 (28-25, 25-27, 27-27, 28-25, 26-25), both from Israel, to make it to the last-16.

Deepika falters

Earlier, Deepika, who qualified for this event as second seed, suffered an embarrassing opening round defeat to little known Yaylagul Ramazanova of Azerbaijan.

The former world No. 1 won the opening two sets to lead 4-0, but her shooting went horribly wrong in the next two where she scored 23 and 24 points respectively, landing five of her six arrows in the outer rings.

She shot thrice in the eight-point red ring, once in the seven-point red ring and while another hit the outer six-point ring as Yaylagul gleefully brought it level at 4-4.

The Azerbaijan archer then won the fifth set with a solid display for a splendid 6-4 (26-28, 25-27, 23-26, 24-25, 27-29) win.

“There was no equipment malfunction but she had poor release after failing to anchor her bow properly. It could be pressure or something else,” a team official told PTI.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)