Deepika Kumari in Olympics: Three-time unlucky

Deepika Kumari has been a dominant force in Indian archery for a decade now. The experienced archer has won medals at the World Championships, World Cups, Asian Championships, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. However, the only piece of metal missing in her glittering cabinet is an Olympic medal.

By the time she hit 27, Deepika Kumar appeared in three Olympic Games, with Tokyo 2020 being her third straight appearance in archery at the quadrennial event.

Here, we recap Deepika Kumari’s performances at the Olympics.

Deepika Kumari at London 2012 Olympics

Hopes were high from Deepika Kumari as she was the top-ranked archer leading into the London Games. However, the Indian archer could not justify the No. 1 rank and endured a difficult Olympic debut as she was down with fever soon after landing in the English capital.

Deepika made a promising start in the ranking round to end up on the eighth spot with 662 points. However, the then 18-year-old could not sustain the form and lost to 57th seed Amy Oliver from Great Britain in the first elimination round.

The Indian won just one set and failed to score a single perfect 10 in the entire match, losing the contest 6-2. Deepika Kumari finished tied 33rd in the individual recurve event.

The Indian women’s team, involving Bombayla Devi, Chekrovolu Swuro and Deepika Kumari, also crashed out in the opening round. The trio lost to Denmark by one point (211-210) thus ending Deepika Kumari’s campaign at London 2012.

Deepika Kumari at Rio 2016 Olympics

Deepika Kumari was rated highly again heading into Rio 2016. Three months before the event, the archer had equalled the qualification round world record.

The Ranchi girl started the ranking round strongly at Rio and was among the top 10 after 18 arrows. However, she slipped in the second half to head into the eliminations as the 20th ranked archer.

In the eliminators, Deepika Kumari overcame a tough challenge from Georgian Kristine Esebua in the round of 64 and defeated Guendalina Sartori from Italy in the next to move into the top 16.

However, she was blanked 6-0 in the round of 16 by Tan Ya-ting of Chinese Taipei, bringing an end to her individual campaign.

In the team event, Deepika Kumari was joined by veteran Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi. The India troika beat Colombia 5-3 in the round of 16 but went down fighting to Russia 4-5 in a shoot-off.

Deepika Kumari at Tokyo 2020 Olympics

After heartbreaks at Rio and London, Deepika Kumari qualified for the Tokyo Games through a gold medal at the Asian Continental Qualification Tournament in Bangkok in 2019.

Deepika Kumar entered Tokyo 2020 as the world No. 1 and was the lone female archer from India at Tokyo. She competed in the women’s individual recurve and mixed team event with Pravin Jadhav.

In the women’s event, Deepika bettered her performance from the previous two Olympics, reaching the top eight for the first time.

However, her campaign was halted by top seed An San of Korea, who…