Rio 2016: Das shines on opening day of archery competition

Atanu Das gave India's Olympic campaign a rousing start with a spirited performance in the ranking round of the men's individual archery event at the Sambodromo here on Friday.

Das scored a total of 683 points to enter the Round of 32 in a creditable fifth place.

Das, who made it to the Olympics after edging out experienced archers Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia in the national trials, enjoyed a superb start and was at the third position in the early stages with 58 points.

He suffered a setback in the next round, however, and slipped to the 24th position with an overall score of 111.

But the Bengal archer took the setback in his stride and started to climb up the ladder with a string of steady performances. He produced a brilliant performance in the sixth round where he scored 57 points out of 60 to rise to the 15th place with a total tally of 337.

The 24-year-old, who is participating in his maiden Olympics, continued to produce a string of consistent performances with another 57 in the next round and two brilliant rounds of 59 points enabling him to take the seventh position with 625 points overall.

He then signed off with a 58 in the final round of the day to finish in the 5th position.

Kim Woojin of South Korea finished at the top spot with a world record score of 700 points out of a possible 720.

Brady Ellison of the US finished second with 690 points, David Pasqualucci of Italy was third with 685 while Dutchman Sjef van den Berg finished at the fourth position with 684.

The previous world record was of 699 points was created by Im Dong Hyun, also from South Korea, at the London Olympics in 2012.

"I practised more than everyone else and I gave my best for the entire round. Tomorrow there is a more important match. In terms of celebrating today. I want to focus on tomorrow's match," Kim was quoted as saying by the official website of World Archery.

Kim had a slow start as Jantsan Gantugs of Mongolia and Berg fought for the early lead. The South Korean climbed to the to the top of the table after the fifth round with a perfect score of 60 which took his total to 292.

The 24-year-old former World No.1 never looked back from there and dominated his opponents with a series of superb scores in the subsequent rounds.

--IANS

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