Pravin Jadhav's performance, which was better than Atanu Das in the ranking round, has prompted him to be paired with Deepika Kumari for the archery mixed team event. The event, making its debut in the Olympics, will be held on Saturday, 24 July.
As per the official website, Jadhav is named alongside Deepika for the event. The two have never partnered in an event before. Based on the combined scores of Jadhav and Deepika, India was placed ninth in the field of 16 for the mixed team event.
The Deepika-Pravin pair will now face Lin Chia-en and Tang Chih-Chun of Chinese Taipei in the Round 16 of elimination on Saturday. If they emerge victorious, they are likely to face South Korean top seeds An San and Kim Je Deok in the quarterfinals.
Jadhav's entry into the mixed team will mean breaking up the pairing of Das and Deepika, who got married during the pandemic in June last year. The husband and wife pairing has been a successful one in the mixed team events on the world stage. The duo recently won a gold medal at the World Cup Stage III in Paris earlier in July.
The reason behind the switch in mixed pair could be largely attributed to Das's poor score in the ranking round on Friday, 23 July.
Jadhav, making his Olympics debut, scored 656 points in the men's ranking round. His rank was 31st, four places above Das, the world no. 9 in the competition, where he garnered a below-par score of 653 points. The third and senior-most member of the team, Tarundeep Rai, was ranked 37th with a total of 652 points.
Deepika, the world no. 1 in women's archery, finished ninth after an overall score of 663 points.
The archery events of the Tokyo Olympics will take place at the Yumenoshima Park Archery Field till 31 July.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)