Women archers, hockey squad show grit but shooters flop

TIL Desk Sports/Rio de Janeiro/ The Indian women’s archery team progressed to the quarter-finals and the hockey squad fought back to hold Japan to a draw, but experienced pistol shooter Heena Sidhu misfired on day two of the Rio Games here today.

The women’s archery team of Laishram Bombayla Devi, Laxmirani Majhi and Deepika Kumari made the quarters of the recurve event by edging out Colombia 5-3.

This was the first time that the women archers had advanced to round two after their poor display in London four years ago when Denmark ousted them in round one. Bombayla and Deepika were part of that team. The trio were to face Russian in the quarter-finals later today.

The women’s hockey squad, which has qualified for the Olympics after 36 years, showed a lot of grit in the face of adversity and staged a grand rally in the second half to hold higher-ranked Japan to a 2-2 draw.