Jayant Talukdar earns Olympic quota berth

Kolkata: Jayanta Talukdar earned an Olympic quota place from the men`s individual recurve event of the Archery World Championship at Turin, in Italy on Friday.

Seeded fifth in the elimination round, Talukdar got a bye to reach round three where he beat 28th ranked Antti Tekoniemi (Finland) 6-4, thus booking a London 2012 berth. Talukdar was one of the eight individuals to win a quota place in the men`s section, according to information received. The Indian women`s trio of Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro have already earned three quota places, thus a total of four berths have already been confirmed for the archers.However, Talukdar went down to 44th ranked Jeff Henckels of Luxembourg 5-6 in the next round to see his title hopes go in vain. After sharing five sets, the match went into one-arrow tie-break in which Talukdar lost 9-10. Earlier, Tarundeep Rai, who was also in the third round, went down to Athens Olympic gold medallist Marco Galiazzo of Italy but not before giving a tough fight. Rai, who was ranked a lowly 62nd as against 19th ranked Italian, lost the first set at 25-27, tied the next 27-27 before winning the third set 29-28. The Indian went into lead by winning the fourth set 29-28. But Rai faltered in the final set as Galiazzo clinched 27-22 to tie 5-5. In the tie-breaker, both shot 10 points each but the Italian was declared the winner because his arrow was closer to the centre. The third Indian, Rahul Banerjee, ranked 72nd, lost to 41st ranked Japanese Hideki Kikuchi 4-6. In the women`s section, both Deepika and Bombayla failed to go past the third round. The ninth ranked Deepika lost to 41st ranked Natalia Lesniak of Poland 5-6 while 15th ranked Bombayla went down to 18th ranked Miranda Leek of the US 3-7. Only the women`s team will be seen in action on Sunday where it will take on Italy in the final. PTI