Mumbai: Deepika Kumari, India’s most skilled feminine recurve archer, didn’t make the minimize for this 12 months’s Asian Video games after the choice trials for the continental occasion and the following two World Cup levels concluded at Sonipat on Monday.
Unheralded Kirti Sharma from Haryana topped the ladies’s recurve part after the four-day trials on the SAI NCOE centre. She was adopted by Kumkum Mohod, Ankita Bhakat and Deepika. Whereas the highest 4 are set to compete within the World Cup Stage 3 and 4 in June and July, solely the highest three earned the spots for the Asian Video games to be held in Japan in September-October.
Paris Olympians Deepika and Ankita together with teenager Kumkum received the group gold on the World Cup Stage 2 in Shanghai final weekend.
These trials mark a continued shift of younger rookie feminine recurve archers shaking up the home order and staking declare to spots within the nationwide setup over some skilled faces.
Kumkum had made the minimize for her maiden World Cup outing by topping the primary set of trials in January-February in Kolkata. In Sonipat, it was Kirti’s flip to step up within the trials between the nation’s prime 16 archers who went via qualification rounds, spherical robin matches and elimination throughout the 4 days.
Among the many males, Paris Olympian Dhiraj Bommadevara was head and shoulders above the sphere, adopted by Neeraj Chauhan and Yashdeep Bhoge. Atanu Das, one other skilled archer and Deepika’s husband, will even solely compete within the World Cup after a fourth-place end.
In compound, Jyothi Surekha Vennam expectedly booked her Asian Video games berth by topping the trials. Telangana’s Taniparthi Chikitha and Maharashtra’s Prithika Pradeep full the Asian Video games line-up whereas Punjab’s Parneet Kaur shall be a part of the World Cup squad.
Sahil Jadhav was among the many prime males’s compound contenders, adopted by Kushal Dalal of Haryana and Thirumuru Ganesh Mani Ratnam of Andhra. Rishabh Yadav completed fourth and shall be solely a part of the World Cup group.
On the Hangzhou Asian Video games three years in the past, India had pocketed 9 medals. The nation’s archers had swept all of the 5 compound titles. Jyothi had received three gold medals (particular person, group and combined group), and so did Ojas Deotale, who completed fifth in these trials. Aditi Swami, one other younger compound archer who broke via then additionally didn’t make the minimize for this version.
From the recurve males’s and girls’s groups that received silver and bronze, respectively, in 2023, solely Dhiraj and Ankita are set to compete in Japan. Deepika was additionally not a part of the contingent in Hangzhou.