Tokyo, July 24: Going by the rankings it was a fair call but tactically appears a mistake as Pravin Jadhav joined Deepika Kumari for archery’s mixed pair event instead of Atanu Das and the last-minute pairing fumbled to go out of the medal race at the Tokyo Games, here on Saturday.
Deepika and Jadhav looked completely out of sorts and lost 2-6 to Korea in the quarterfinals despite some below-par shooting by the top seeds.
That the two Korean Olympic debutants, 17-year-old Kim Je Deok and 20-year-old An San won two sets despite scoring only 35 out of a possible 40 showed the below-par shootings by both the teams.
The team think-tank here on Friday made the bold decision to split up the husband-wife combination of Deepika and Das, who had won a World Cup mixed team gold less than a month back in Paris.
The mixed teams are formed on the basis of scores and on Friday it was Jadhav who was best among the trio finishing 31st, four places ahead of Deepika’s ‘favourite’ partner Das in the ranking round.
Countries, however, have one-hour time to exercise the option of switching to their best combination but the Indian think-tank chose to be bold.
Deepika was already unhappy at the surprise decision to rejig the combination. “I’m a little sad, he (Atanu Das) is not with me in the mixed team. It mattered, as I really wanted to play with him but it did not happen,” Deepika said after the first round win against Chinese Taipei.
A former top-level India coach slammed the decision and blamed the team management in Tokyo for making a “royal blunder”.
“We had 100 per cent chances, if Deepika had partnered Das. Deepika was visibly very upset, we did not even see her talking to her partner (Jadhav),” the coach, who did not wish to be named, told PTI.
Archery Association of India (AAI) official Virendra Sachdeva, however defended the decision. “There was no problem with the coordination as we did really well to bounce back against the Chinese Taipei. “But archery at the Olympics will remain a mystery for us. We lost the match in the first set only after we failed to win despite the Koreans shooting a poor 35.” (PTI)
