Indian recurve Archers Fail To Secure Paris 2024 Olympics Quotas

In a grim reality check ahead of the Olympics next year, Indian recurve archers ended their campaign from the World Championship without a medal here on Thursday. Having crashed out of the team events, the archers bowed out in the individual sections as well. India's biggest hope Dhiraj Bommadevara, who qualified as second seed from the qualification round, and Simranjeet Kaur, were the best finishers for the country, losing in the pre-quarterfinals. With this, India's hopes for securing Paris Olympics team and individual quota places from this event have evaporated. This is the first Olympic qualifier giving berths to the top-three finishers in individual and team categories.

But it's not the end of the road for Indian archers as they can still qualify for Paris 2024 from continental qualifiers or rankings.

Nevertheless, it was the below-par show that came to haunt Indian archery again as they search for an elusive Olympic medal.

21-year-old Dhiraj is projected as the biggest Indian hope in the next year's Olympics.

Dhiraj did well to grab second ranking, shooting five points behind double Olympic gold medalist Kim Woo-jin of Korea.

It gave the India a bye to the third round (last-32) after he overcame harrowing first set to defeat Brazilian Matheus Zwick Ely 6-4 (18-25, 24-22, 26-26, 28-25, 25-25).

Zwick Ely took the first set after Dhiraj shot misfired one of his three arrows. A nervy Dhiraj shot a six in the second set but managed to win it to level scores.

Third was a tie, and it was only in the fourth set the Indian came on his own to shoot 28 out of 30 and sealed the win in the fifth with a tie.

In the pre-quarters, world number 26 Dhiraj lost to lower-ranked Ricardo Soto of Chile.

The 4-6 (26-24, 26-28, 21-23,