Archery, Olympics 2024: Dismal end to Paris campaign demands new approach for India

The last medal on offer in archery at the 2024 Paris Olympics was in the men’s individual event. It was a clash for the ages – South Korea’s Kim Woojin up against the USA’s Brady Ellison. Between them, the duo had won eight Olympic medals and a whopping 17 World Championships medals.

Both archers shot near perfect sets filled with mostly 10s and it came down to a shoot-off. The gold was decided by a mere five millimetres and Kim had secured his third gold medal of Paris 2024, after the men’s team and mixed team event. Ellison meanwhile had to be content with a silver to go with his mixed team bronze medal.

One archer in particular, would have watched the shoot-off with a wry smile. The archer in question, Dhiraj Bommadevara, on his debut Olympic campaign, had finished fourth in the qualification round, behind the three South Koreans and was the most consistent archer for his country across both men and women.

His individual campaign though came to a heart-breaking end in a shoot-off against Canada’s Eric Peters, where much like Kim and Ellison, it was down to the distance between the two 10s. Peters’ arrow was 24 millimetres closer to the centre than Bommadevara’s, and the 22-year-old Indian had to bow out.

This compounded the disappointing outing by the men’s team who had finished third in the qualification round and exited in the quarter-final, losing to Turkey. Bommadevara however had the mixed team event as well, along with the highest Indian qualifier amongst the women, 26-year-old Ankita Bhakat.

The Indians came up against the formidable South Korea who had already taken the men’s and women’s team gold medals. Despite pushing the Koreans to the limit, India lost the match and entered the bronze medal tie against the USA.

That was the first time India had reached the semi-final of an archery event at the Olympics.

But Ellison and his partner Casey Kaufhold also had history in sights and ended up winning, with Kaufhold becoming the first American woman to stand on an Olympic podium in archery.

And just like that, Indian archery had faltered at the final step once again.

Olympic build-up

Veteran Deepika Kumari had fought her way back to the top of Indian archery after an extended break from the sport following her pregnancy.

In December 2023, right after she delivered her daughter, her husband Atanu Das, also an archer, convinced her to fly out to South Korea to visit the Kim Hyung Tak Archery School, famous for its founder and world-renowned coach Kim Hyung Tak.

Kim Hyung Tak, as reported by the Indian Express, allowed the 30-year-old Kumari to relearn her sport that showcased her talent and build on her abilities. From minor adjustments of her grip on the bow to engaging with tools that would allow her to shoot more consistently, Kumari gave it her all and ended up securing her spot on the national team heading to Paris.

The Archery Association of India also looked towards South Korea, hiring Baek Woong Ki as head coach in April 2023. Baek was the coach responsible for the gold medals won by South Korea in the sport at the 2012 London Olympics.

The results were there to see soon enough as both the Indian men’s and women’s teams returned with a silver and bronze respectively at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. Bommadevara would then go on to put his individual Asian Games disappointment behind him to secure an Olympic quota.

However, on the eve of the Paris Games, it emerged that Baekwas not part of the accredited officials for the Indian archery contingent. In Baek’s absence, Purnima Mahato, in her fourth Olympic campaign, and Sonam Tshering Bhutia took over coaching duties.

Out of the eight priority sports listed by the Indian government and the Sports Authority of India, archery is the only one that does not have a single Olympic medal to its name. As the 2024 season began, the hopes for one in Paris were slowly gaining steam.

But with one fourth place finish, three losses in the quarter-finals and no medals to show for it, one begins to wonder – where did it all go wrong?

Haystack of issues with no needle

Unlike how the Indian contingent would fare before previous Olympic editions, the preparation for Paris 2024 was quite successful.

Bommadevara led the charge with eight medals across the individual, men’s team and mixed team events in the 2023 and 2024 World Cup stages. Kumari marked her international return with a silver medal in the women’s individual event in the World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai. Bhajan Kaur, Pravin Jadhav and Bhakat gave good accounts of themselves with individual and team medals as well.

India also beat reigning world and Olympic champions South Korea to win a historic gold medal in the men’s team event at the Archery World Cup Stage 1 earlier this year.

Dola Banerjee, in an interview with this publication before the Paris Games began, said that the Indian archers of today were more well-equipped to deal with the pressures of the Olympics because of their increased amounts of experience on the world stage.

But over the course of 10 days at the Esplanade des Invalides, the Indian archery team, barring Bommadevara in patches, displayed none of the confidence of World Cup winners.

Kumari, in her fourth Olympics, shot 8s and 9s in a knock-out match against a debutant Nam Suhyeon who was 11 years her junior. Bhakat’s 4 in the team quarter-final against the lower-ranked Netherlands was not good enough when Kaur consistently hit 9s and 10s.

The pressure of the Olympics is unlike any other competition, and the South Korean archers weren’t immune to it. There were uncharacteristic 7s and 8s from them in the individual events, but those were rare compared to how often the Indian archers would shoot loose arrows.

For now, the World Cups and other competitions will come and go between Paris and Los Angeles, the host of the 2028 Olympics. India will send their archers with the hopes of medals. But what needs to happen in these four years is a thorough investigation into the mismatch between quality and strength of India’s archers before one begins to hope of breaking the Olympic duck.

Like the officials that replace the target sheets with a fresh one after every set, what is needed for post-Paris 2024 is a replacement of the current system in Indian archery.

Next time, for starters, they at least need to ensure the head coach gets to be with the team at the Olympics.